Prisoner of the Past
by Crius
Summary: Having been in Azkaban for 6 years, Harry is broken out to find Voldemort in power in Britain. Will he succeed in rallying the forces of the Light and ending the reign of the Dark Lord? REWRITE COMPLETE!
1. The Best of Days, The Worst of Days

**Prisoner of the Past**

Summary: The world has changed. The Light has fallen and Voldemort has overtaken wizarding Britain. Languishing in Azkaban for the last six years, Harry Potter has no knowledge of this until he is freed by the remnants of the Order of the Phoenix. Will he be able to rally the failing forces of the Light and end the reign of the Dark Lord?

Disclaimer: I own nothing. No copyright infringement is intended. Just a harmless piece of fun, but please don't reproduce this without asking me first!

Pairings: HarryxGinny, RonxHermione, Justin Finch-FletchleyxHannah Abbot, Cedric DiggoryxCho Chang, NevillexSusan Bones, Oliver WoodxAlicia Spinnet for definite, others may follow. No slash, I can't write that convincingly, sorry.

Author Note: This is not an Azkaban fic, strictly speaking, it was just a convenient device to get Harry out of the way while Voldemort came back. That is not to say that Harry will be unaffected by his time inside, but Azkaban is not the focus of the story. The focus is Harry and Voldemort. This story is now undergoing a rewrite, so here is Chapter 1 rewritten. Not a great deal has changed, mainly some alterations to Harry's POV at the start to accommodate some of the new tacks I've taken in subsequent chapters. To be honest I was pretty happy with the way it was, and no one seemed to have major criticisms about the story yet. Changes will become much more evident next chapter. In the meantime, enjoy…

* * *

Eighteen-year-old Harry James Potter huddled on the cold stone floor of his cell, a lifeless wreck of a teenager. He still tried, occasionally, to block out the incessant screaming and the horrible memories that played in his mind ad nauseam, mostly due to sheer stubbornness, but he had stayed here so long now that it was well-nigh impossible to raise any mental defences at all. Six years, that was how long he had been in this hellhole. It seemed much longer to him, but the calendar scratched on his cell wall remained accurate, or at least he thought it did, insanity meant that he could not be sure, he might have missed a few days, but what the hell? Six years at least then, with no contact with the outside world, no visitors, no letters, nothing. Not that he had anyone to write to, or to visit him, the entire world was convinced that he was the murderous heir of Salazar Slytherin, and that he spent his days plotting ways to exterminate Muggle-Borns and torture innocent people into insanity. Even Ron and Hermione, his staunchest supporters from before, or at least he hoped they were, sometimes he wondered whether they too had succumbed to public pressure and repudiated him, had never once tried to contact him. He had become a man under these appalling conditions, conditions that would have broken a fully-grown wizard, let alone a twelve-year-old boy. But Harry was no ordinary boy; he had grown up with the Dursleys, surrounded by harsh abuse, both physical and mental, on a daily basis. He had not broken then, and he did not break now either. He stubbornly clung to the person he had once been, when he was sane enough to display anything resembling a personality, which was not all that often.

Today, however, was his birthday, and for once he was relatively lucid. The presence of Dementors during his formative years meant that he was by now mostly accustomed to their presence, so on the rare days that he was able to drag himself back out of insanity, he was fairly clear-headed. He had awakened with the dawn and, on consulting the scratched calendar on his wall, which had informed him of the significance of this particular day, had ironically sung himself a Happy Birthday in a loud, raucous and horribly off-key voice. After that, however, there was little to do. Azkaban was not heavy on things to amuse one and pass the time. There was no library, no socialising, nothing, although to be fair most prisoners were not in any condition to want or need such things. From his seated position in the corner of his cell, Harry could just about look up through the grate that was embedded into the wall of his cell about ten feet over his head and see the sky through it. Most days it was either flat and grey or roiling and stormy, but every so often, as was the case today, the sky was mostly clear with a few clouds. The sunrise was turning the clouds a fiery red from below, and Harry stared up at them.

As it frequently did in his lucid moments, Harry's mind turned back to the reason he was where he was. It was almost humorous really, what a simple quirk of fate, like dropping a stupid book, could so easily destroy his life. Without the diary, there was no proof of the involvement of Tom Marvolo Riddle as the instigator of the attacks, and the revelation that he was a Parselmouth had pointed the finger of suspicion directly at him when the monster in the Chamber of Secrets had been proved to be a Basilisk. He thought Dumbledore might have believed his story, Ron too judging by the impassioned testimony he had given at Harry's trial that his best friend would never do anything like what people were suggesting, and Ginny certainly would have since she knew the truth, but the rest of the wizarding world had turned against him faster than he could say 'not guilty' and was screaming for his condemnation. Even the other Weasleys, who had treated him like family during the summer of that same school year, had not come to his support, or had they? He could not recall them being there, but the Dementors had started taking his memories years ago, so he could no longer be sure. Sometimes it was best not to dwell too much on the certainties that might or might not be certain in his world. If there were a death penalty in the wizarding world, he was sure that he would have gotten it. As it was, Fudge had circumvented law to improve his own popularity with the wizarding world by acquiescing to public demands, and as a result he had been sentenced to life in the maximum security section of the prison, never to see freedom again, a sentence that could not technically be given to a minor.

His mind wandered off on other bitter tangents as he considered friends who had turned against him. Memories of his trial and particular faces jumped to the fore. Hagrid shouting angrily at him, McGonagall staring at him stonily, Snape grinning maliciously, the pain he had felt when the Weasleys never showed up, Oliver Wood sitting there with his parents, shooting death glares at the boy who had been the star of his Quidditch team for two short years, Justin Finch-Fletchley's parents and three brothers cornering him outside the courtroom as he was escorted back to the cells at the ministry and beating him until he was raw and bloody while the Aurors who were supposed to be guarding him stood by and laughed, occasionally throwing in a blow of their own. The litany of faces went on and on, a whirl of pain and depression to rival that induced by the Dementors.

He dropped his head, feeling sanity slipping away again. He wondered when death would take him. It was not that he wanted the end to come. Desiring death was tantamount to giving up; to letting those who had put him here win. But he was not stupid. He had long since given up on getting out himself, or on anyone on the outside managing it. He would die here, but he would do so on his own terms, as the person he was. That was his last coherent thought before he slipped back into the grey fog of madness once more, his screams and cries joining the howling cacophony of the other inmates as his mind was dragged back to the Halloween night that he had lost his parents.

* * *

Tom Marvolo Riddle, aka Lord Voldemort, was having a bad day. This was not a new situation, he had not had a good day in a long time now, but the fact was still noteworthy at least once a day. In theory he had won. The Ministry of Magic was his, Hogwarts was his, and virtually the entire British wizarding community bowed at his feet. Resistance to him had been reduced to a few scattered individuals, who ran and hid far more than they caused trouble. He had personally killed Dumbledore during the siege of Hogwarts, his Death Eaters had rounded up the vast majority of the Order of the Phoenix and either killed them or cast them into Azkaban. The remaining members at large constituted those who were beneath his notice, refuse like Mundungus Fletcher or flea-bitten Muggle-lovers like Amelia Bones.

The only exception was Harry Potter. The damnable Boy-Who-Lived, cause of his previous defeat and, according to prophecy the only person capable of defeating him, continued to elude his grasp. He had not been seen or heard from in over six years now, and many believed him dead, but for Voldemort that was not enough. He needed proof; he needed to see the boy's mangled body lying at his feet, to see the still chest and the green eyes blanked in death. Only then could he be certain that his position was secure, only then would his victory be complete. Old issues of the Daily Prophet informed him that Potter had been found guilty of unleashing the Basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets and using it to attack students. This had caused him to come closer to mirth than he had been in years, since he knew the truth about his Diary-Horcrux, and on recovering it from the Chamber and examining it had discovered that it had in fact been possessing Ginevra Weasley to achieve the intended aim of purging the school of Mudbloods. According to the Prophets, Potter had been sentenced to life imprisonment in Azkaban, but a thorough search of the prison records had yielded no information about Harry Potter whatsoever. He had even gone out to the island prison and personally searched every cell for his mortal foe, but had not found him. His Death Eaters were at a loss, and so was he. The boy was nowhere to be found, as if the earth had opened up and swallowed him whole. But Voldemort had the nagging feeling that he had not seen the last of the boy, that he was still out there waiting for the opportune moment to cause trouble, and so he continued to expend incredible resources on an extensive manhunt for the boy. He held out no hope, however, that this morning's reports on that search would be any different to those of the previous day's, or the day before, or the week before, or the month before, or even the year before.

Sensing the approach of his most trusted Death Eater, he turned away from the balcony and the orange sunrise that he had been watching and towards the interior of the mansion that was his.

"So, Severus," he stated in his high, cold voice, "What news today?"

"My lord," Snape said, inclining his head respectfully, "The search for the Potter boy continues to be fruitless. Perhaps my lord, it might be prudent after all this time to…"

"You seek to question my instructions, Severus?" Voldemort's voice was quiet but dangerous and Snape blanched ever so slightly at the implied threat.

"Not at all, my lord," Snape stated deferentially, but not too hastily, "I was merely pointing out that after six years without a trace of him, the search could easily be futile. If the boy were alive he would surely have shown himself by now, he is not the type to be idle when there is trouble about, and if he is dead then six years is more than enough time for a body to be unrecognisable or even gone altogether."

"Your point is logical, Severus," Voldemort replied, he could not deny that, "But nevertheless my instinct is that Potter remains alive and at large. I too thought that he would show himself by now. From what I have heard and what I recall the boy was an insufferable heroic type. I am astounded that he has managed to control his impulse to rush into the fray for so long, especially given the fates of some of his friends, but he _is_ out there, and he _must_ be found. His demise will end all threats to my plans."

"As you wish, my lord," Snape said with another incline of his head.

"What other reports are there?"

"Our infiltration of the Muggle government continues apace, my lord. Recent elections in Birmingham and Newcastle were subverted and three more Death Eaters have now gained seats in their House of Parliament. However our efforts overseas have not been so successful. The Americans remain stubbornly in isolation. Our representatives to their Department of Magic have been turned away for the third time without a hearing, and they continue to deny British wizards immigration rights, so placing spies is impossible. In the rest of Europe, however your support is growing, especially among the old noble families of the continent."

"The Americans are of no consequence, they are nothing more than a remnant, a shadow of the greatness that exists in the Old World. The ancient and powerful magical families and creatures exist on this side of the Atlantic. Once Europe, Asia and Africa are mine they will be forced to bow before me. Cease sending emissaries. When they are finally forced into servitude, I will make them regret their disrespect for me. Otherwise things are to proceed as planned. Now go, I must consider how next to try and flush Potter out of his hiding place."

"As you wish, my lord," Snape repeated, bowing as he retreated once more. Voldemort watched him go before turning back to the sunrise and to the infuriating puzzle that was Harry Potter.

* * *

Justin Finch-Fletchley sat in silence as he contemplated the course of action he was about to embark upon. Many would call it futile, foolhardy even, what he was about to attempt. He had no choice though; Harry Potter was their only hope against Voldemort, something Justin had learned on his induction into the Order of the Phoenix a nearly three years ago. The boy was, according to prophecy, destined to meet the Dark Lord in a kill or be killed confrontation. The news had made them all deeply uncomfortable, given that Harry was in Azkaban for attempting to murder several students, himself included by setting a Basilisk on them. Then Dumbledore had revealed another piece of information about Harry that had shifted them all from deeply uncomfortable to inconsolably guilty: Harry Potter was innocent.

At first Justin had not been able to believe his ears, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley and his sister Ginny had always maintained this stance, even after his imprisonment, they still argued against anyone that bad-mouthed Harry in the slightest, but they were easy to dismiss as being in denial. Two of them were his ex-best friends, and the third had a crush the size of a mountain on the boy. Coming from the Headmaster, however, it was a different story. There was evidence, however flimsy it might be, and Dumbledore had been completely candid with them about what was fact and what was his own supposition. Justin, in particular had been horrified to learn of the innocence of the Boy-Who-Lived. He recalled all too well the moment immediately after the trial when Justin's father and three brothers had caught up with Harry and his escort outside the courtroom. They had not even needed to do anything but ask, the Aurors had quite happily stood aside as the Finch-Fletchley men administered a little 'justice' of their own for his Petrification. At thirteen Justin had felt more than a little satisfaction as the Aurors dragged the battered and bleeding Boy-Who-Lived away to Azkaban. At fifteen he had realised that it had been a terrible thing to do, even more so if Harry was indeed innocent. Now at eighteen he hoped to finally be able to go some way to exculpating the guilt he felt by setting Harry free. Indeed he had been clamouring for a chance at this ever since he had learned that the Order was working on breaking Harry out of prison. Dumbledore had denied him, however, stating that while he was a wizard of decent skill and power, he simply did not have what it took to assault one of the most impregnable fortresses in the Wizarding world. For the first time Justin fervently hoped that Albus Dumbledore was wrong because here he was about to lead another attempt to free Harry from Azkaban.

Fortunately he had able help in this effort, his team consisted of Remus Lupin, Sirius Black and Ron Weasley. By all rights one of them should be leader, not him, but they had insisted that he lead. He had been clamouring to go after Harry for so long that it was his right, they said. He viewed it more as a penance; he was orchestrating the release of the man he had so desperately wronged six years ago. He looked over the other three. Justin felt that he had chosen well. Each of them was connected to Harry in some way. Ron had been his best friend at school, Sirius and Remus had been friends of his father, and Sirius was his godfather. No one that was left in the Order of the Phoenix would be more motivated than they to see Harry free, plus they had each participated in prior rescue attempts, and so had some knowledge of what they were up against. A voice brought him out of his contemplation.

"Justin?"

Justin looked up into the sky blue eyes and freckled face of Ronald Weasley, the man who had maintained for six solid years that Harry Potter was innocent, and had turned out to be right. Justin would give almost anything to be him, to escape from the guilt of being wrong, of committing an innocent man to six years of hell, but he knew that it was a futile wish, just like his desire to have back that day at the courtroom so that he could take back his testimony against Harry. Now all he could do was rescue the Boy-Who-Lived from his imprisonment and hope that in return Harry would forgive him.

"It's time?" he asked, standing.

Ron merely nodded and the two walked outside to join Sirius and Remus. The sun was two points above the horizon now, and if the guards were keeping to their assigned patrol schedules of the island that contained the forbidding prison that was just visible in the distance, then two wizards on the landward side of the island would currently be standing almost a mile apart on the dismal grey shore. What came next was a tricky piece of magic that required careful timing. Azkaban island was covered by triple-layered anti-Apparition wards to prevent sudden invasions. Wards, however, had to be anchored to solid objects at the edges, or else the ward's boundaries could move and the overstretched spell would lose power and dissipate. Therefore only the island itself was warded, the water around it was not. That said, Apparating to open water was not the smartest idea as it would be all too easy for a high wave to intersect an Apparating wizard and disrupt him as he reappeared, most likely causing death or at least severe internal damage, and the waters around Azkaban were enchanted to be choppy for just this reason, frequently reaching as high as twenty feet.

To be safe, therefore, the four rescuers would be Apparating to a spot just off the shore of the island almost fifty feet in the air, a safe height up from the rough waves, but without aid a fatal distance to fall and hit rough water. The tricky part was that they would all have to Apparate there, and then, without more than a second's pause for thought, each of them would have to cast a levitation charm on his team-mates. Three levitation charms per person should provide enough upward force to give them a relatively gentle landing into the water, and then they could emerge from the sea directly onto the shores of the island. That was the theory anyway, time to see if they could bring it off.

Together the four men lined up on the cliff facing Azkaban, drawing their wands now as they would not have time to do so once they reached their destination. Justin counted them down and with a loud crack of displaced air, all four Disapparated at the same moment, reappearing at the designated points. Justin searched the air wildly around him as he felt gravity begin to take hold of his body, and found his comrades. Three quick levitation charms slowed their descent, and Justin felt his own fall slowing as the water drew nearer and nearer. The impact still drove the air from his lungs, and blackness encroached briefly on his vision, but he was alive and no major harm was done. He kicked for the surface and, upon reaching it gulped in huge gasps of air as his head turned wildly, once again searching for his team-mates. Unfortunately he saw no sign of them. Were they alright? Had the fall killed them? Was he now alone in this desperate mission? He verged on the brink of panic at the thought. Then his training took over. He heard again the whisper of Alastor Moody's voice in his mind, a memory from the combat classes that Moody taught to all joining members of the Order: '_Always remember the mission. So long as one remains, the mission takes paramount importance. Mourn your dead later, after you've done what you came to do._'. Striking out with a strong stroke, Justin swam for the grey, rocky shore of the island. It was difficult going with the enchanted waves buffeting him about, but eventually he made it. Unfortunately it had taken too long and the perimeter patrol had returned to the mid-point of his route.

"You there! Stop!"

Justin looked up from his prone position to see a burly wizard in black robes but without a Death Eater mask running towards him, wand out and aimed already. Justin went for his own wand, and discovered to his horror that he had lost it, maybe on impact with the water, or possibly during the long swim to shore, it did not matter, his hand had come up empty. He was, in a word, screwed, and had to bite back several choice swear words at the thought. Dumbledore had been right after all, he could not even hang onto his wand. He raised his hands in surrender as the guard skidded to a halt ten feet away, too far for Justin to try to jump him. He gestured with the wand for Justin to kneel, and Justin complied. Ropes shot out of the end of the guard's wand, binding Justin's body tightly and he could not break his fall as he overbalanced from the sudden forced changes in his body position. He stared up at the guard who was now coming closer cautiously. He could also feel the pound of running footsteps through the hard rock that indicated the approach of someone else, probably the other guard on patrol. Sure enough another black robed figure entered Justin's field of view. He was not just screwed. He was _royally_ screwed now.

There was a quick muttered conference between the two wizard guards that Justin could not make out from his supine position on the hard ground, but the substance of the conversation became immediately apparent when the first wizard flicked his wand, causing a shower of red sparks to erupt from its tip and shoot into the sky. His body suddenly lifted about a foot into the air and, judging by the sudden motion of the clouds, he was being levitated in the direction he knew the prison fortress lay in. Was this an automated defence? Was one of the guards escorting him? He could not be certain. Nothing like this was listed as part of the prison's defences, but he was not so foolish as to think that everything about the place was well documented. Craning his neck around to look earned him a boot in the back, so at least one of the guards was with him. He hoped that he might be wrong about the others and that with at least one of the patrols taking care of him, they might have an easier time getting through, but needless to say he could not count on it. Options and possibilities skittered through his brain at top speed. Unfortunately without a wand, and bound without the possibility of movement, running through his options took very little time at all, they were rather limited. He was capable of doing some magic without a wand, simple spells like levitation, perhaps even a stunner if he really thought about it, but he was on very shaky ground. The possibility of magical exhaustion loomed large, and with it the failure of the mission. This was do or die, he would not have the time to recover any sort of magical power if he exhausted himself, and he would surely need it to break into the fortress itself. So many problems, so few solutions, his head was starting to spin.

Deciding it was all or nothing, Justin wriggled his fingers against the conjured ropes. Pointing his right index finger towards the knot that secured his wrists and arms, he cast a Fire-Starting Charm. The knot disintegrated into ash and Justin felt as though he had just been sucker punched in the gut. His hands free, he flung an arm out in the direction that the boot that had connected with his back must have come from. Justin was not much of one for believing in higher powers, or luck, or fate, wizards frequently believe that they are above such things because of their superior powers, but in that moment he prayed hard to anyone that might be listening that he was accurate as he cast another Fire-Starting Charm. Strangely enough it took less power than a Stunner, and it would be more effective in this situation. The guard was almost certainly a supporter of Voldemort, so Justin felt little remorse at the thought of him being severely burned. Suddenly he dropped the two-foot distance to the hard earth, the wind knocked out of him once again, but he smiled. Someone up there must still like him a little bit. Then he realised that it was still silent. This seemed odd since the most common reaction to being set on fire was to run around screaming at the top of one's lungs. Justin pushed himself up into a sitting position using his freed hands, and immediately saw the reason for the lack of screaming on the guard's part. His throat was a charred hole in his prone body. Whoever was up there must _really_ like him.

Quickly undoing the rest of the ropes that bound him, Justin expropriated the dead guard's wand. It would not work as well as his own, but it was much better than nothing. Then he surveyed the scene. He was now standing about half way between the shore of the island and the looming walls of the forbidding fortress, well beyond the outer perimeter patrols. In a way this was a good thing, there were no other patrols between him and the fortress. However the danger was now much greater. The walls of Azkaban were spell-shielded in ways that made Hogwarts' defences look like paper, and they were manned exclusively by Dementors. Fortunately the Ministry had made one small oversight when constructing the defences of the prison. Every cell was warded against any form of transport intending to leave the prison, the only way of exiting the prison was via a specially constructed magical gateway that landed its users back outside the walls at the docks to take the boats back to the mainland. Apparition wards, of course worked both ways, so that was out, and flying was not an option since the Dementors would be all over him like a rash. However _incoming _Portkeys would go through the wards on the castle itself just fine. In fact that was how the Ministry transported people into their cells, to the extent that the walls of Azkaban were unbroken by doors of any sort. The island as a whole was warded against incoming Portkeys, but the fortress itself was not. Justin took out from under his robes a perfectly ordinary pocket watch. It had been his father's, before his father was killed in one of the many purges of Muggles connected to the magical world that Voldemort had instituted in the last eighteen months. He tapped the watch with his borrowed wand and muttered '_Portus_' causing the watch to glow a bright blue for two seconds before returning to its perfectly inconspicuous state. Since this wand was borrowed, he felt the drain of the powerful and complex spell, combined with his earlier wandless spells it was wearing. Justin now felt as though he had just run half of his usual morning three mile run, except without the invigoration that came with the physical exercise. He prayed that he would have the endurance to see this through. Tapping the watch again with the wand, he was instantly transported into the fortress, to find himself in an empty cell whose door hung askew from one hinge instead of the three that should have secured it.

Needless to say he was quite shocked by this turn of events. This should, if the information Snape had managed to get to them before erasing the prison records all those years ago, have been Potter's cell, and Harry should most certainly not have been able to get out. According to his file, a Dementor stood guard outside his cell day and night, he was that highly classified. Was the man possessed of a power none of them realised? Had he escaped recently? Once again questions skittered across his mind. Then he heard the heavy grunting and scraping coming from the corridor outside. He crept up to the door way, and leapt out into the corridor, his borrowed wand at the ready.

For the second time that day he was confronted by sky-blue eyes and a freckled face, although this time they were preceded by the tip of a wand. However when Ron saw who it was he lowered the wand.

"Took you long enough," he muttered, somewhat reproachfully, " Sirius and Remus have gone on ahead a bit to clear the way for us. Get his other arm and help me, he's not heavy, but he's not entirely right in the head. Who would be after spending six years in here?"

At the mention of Harry, Justin realised that the arm that was not holding his wand, Ron had wrapped around the body of a frail man at roughly armpit level. What got to Justin was that armpit level on the Boy-Who-Lived was almost waist height for Ron. He could also tell from behind that the man was severely undernourished, which probably accounted for his stunted height. His black robes, little more than tattered strips of cloth that were arranged to preserve basic modesty, revealed a back that was almost like a perfect model skeleton from behind with a thin white covering of some sort. Justin gasped involuntarily, and he knew that he had probably not yet seen the worst of it, had not seen Harry's face, the blank look of madness that surely filled his eyes. Getting a hold of himself, he transferred his wand to his left hand, moved forward quickly and put his right shoulder beneath Harry's left armpit, draping the arm across the back of his neck before lifting. Ron was right, Harry was light, disturbingly so for an eighteen year old. When they lifted together, Harry's head was level with his. He stared straight ahead at where they were going, afraid to look at the face of the man he had wronged so badly, to see the result of his mistake.

Harry did not say a word as they dragged him bodily through the corridors of the prison. His feet made feeble attempts at walking motions, but he had no apparent sense of co-ordination, so after a few stumbles, Ron and Justin hoisted him higher, lifting him off the ground entirely, and once again Justin was struck by how easy it was to do so. Now came the difficult part of their plan, the getaway. The hallways of the prison were patrolled by Dementors every thirty minutes, but Sirius and Remus could handle the two-Dementor patrols that did this. Their prime problem would be making it to the portal chamber, which was guarded, according to the records by thirty Dementors and a series of vicious kill-first-ask-questions-later type wards that would take an expert curse-breaker years to unravel if he did not know the password, a password that changed on a daily basis and whose only record was kept in a room in the Ministry so secure that it had its own team of twenty four hour Auror guards, which needless to say they did not. Fortunately, however, the Ministry had once again made a minor oversight in the construction of their defences, a necessary flaw in the shield in case one of their own should be captured. There was a master password, known only to the minister himself, never written down, never spoken aloud to anyone except the minister's successor, who then wiped the memory of his predecessor to ensure that the secret remained safe. The master password never changed, and one of the first things Dumbledore had done when Fudge had refused to hand Harry back over was to Legilimise the password out of him and wipe his memory. This still left, however the not so minor inconvenience of thirty Dementors between them and their goal, too many for four Patroni to overcome at once, even if they could all produce Patroni as powerful as say Dumbledore or Flitwick could have done, which they could not. In fact of the four of them, only Remus could even produce a corporeal Patronus that would charge down the Dementors, the others of them could only conjure Patronus shields that would fend off Dementors and drain their strength until exhausted. Not to mention the fact that Voldemort had probably added to the defences, additions of which they would have no knowledge until they got there.

They were halted, however, by Sirius and Remus running towards the three of them, back up the corridor.

"The portal chamber's surrounded," Sirius panted as they skidded to a halt in front of Ron, Justin and Harry, "Must be a hundred Dementors standing at the entrance. No chance we can get out that way."

Justin swore, loudly. How many other things would go wrong today? They had only one option left, an option they had not considered to be a real recourse given the strength of the construction of Azkaban's walls. They would have to find their way to a corridor that bordered the outer perimeter of the fortress and chip away at the thick walls with Reductor curses until they could get out, an endeavour that could take hours given the sheer volume of stone and the protective wards involved. Still they had no choice, one hundred Dementors was too many for fifty wizards to handle, let alone four, and there was a chance, however ridiculously slender it might be, that no one would notice until they blew a nice big hole in the outer walls, what they were up to. Justin had the feeling that they would not be that lucky.

Nevertheless, bereft of other options, they ran through corridor after corridor. Each of them knew the plans of the prison perfectly, so there was no hesitation as they headed for the perimeter of the prison. There were no cells near the perimeter walls, only large empty rooms, and the outer walls themselves were over ten metres thick, composed of solid stone blocks weighing over three tons each, the sort of construction that only wizards could achieve. Added to that, the stones were laced with charms to protect their integrity in the face of magical assault, making them ten times stronger towards spells than they were to mundane tools, and hardened granite was impenetrable enough to begin with. Finding a suitable corridor, Sirius, Remus and Ron drew their wands and wasted no time in getting to work on the walls, conjuring steel tools and animating them with magic to chip away at the blocks as well as casting Reductor curses as fast as they could make the wand movements and think the incantation. Bereft of his own wand, Justin was unable to join in and so was relegated to the role of lookout. Harry huddled against the wall of the corridor, unmoving except a slight flinch when chips of stone from the wall bounced off the corridor walls and floor around him.

As Justin predicted, barely ten minutes into their excavations, the familiar chill of approaching Dementors washed over them. Ron, Remus and Sirius stepped up the pace of their work, the tools they had conjured now smashing into the wall at a frenzied pace and the Reductor curses hit with more force as adrenaline ran high. It was not going to be enough though, the crater they had made in the wall so far was barely half a metre deep, although its diameter was large enough to accommodate a standing man. Their salvation came from a most unexpected source.

Unnoticed by anyone, Harry was shakily clawing at the stonework, rising inch by inch to his feet. He had a vague idea of what was going on, people were trying to get him out of this hellhole, but they were blocked by the wall, it was the only explanation for their determined attack of it. Fortunately he knew just the spell they needed, except he could not seem to find his own wand. Had he dropped it? Was one of these other people using it because they had lost theirs? He did not know, but this spell needed a wand, he knew that much. He scrabbled in his ragged robes – how had they got like that anyway? – his hands coming up empty. Finally he gave up, he could do this with someone else's wand and find his own later, for now they needed to get out. He clawed another brick higher, bringing himself nearer to upright. He could not work out why his legs would not do as he commanded them, perhaps he had been hit by a Tarantallegra curse. Again he could sort it out later, for now he needed to get a wand. He tottered over to the nearest of his rescuers, a tall man with red hair and freckles who looked vaguely familiar, nearly falling over again twice on the way. The man did not even notice his approach, Harry would have to teach him how to duel properly, Tom would have had his guts in a heartbeat if he were here. Who was Tom again? Harry pushed away the irrelevant thought, now was the time for action, not wondering at abstracts. His hand closed over the man's wand hand, his skeletal fingers clasping over the man's long digits. The red-haired man met his eyes in shock, and Harry could see his mouth opening, forming words, but he could not spare the concentration to try to work out what he was saying. Reaching down into himself, he called upon the memories-that-were-his-without-being-his. The incantation he needed was in there, he knew it. At last he found the right one. He heard his high cold voice-that-was-not-his scream the spell into the night, watched as the jet of deep blue light shot out and hit the house, blowing it to smithereens as though it had been packed with dynamite. Drawing his breath in, he screamed the same incantation to the torch-lit corridor.

"_Corrumpero Maxime!_"

The jet of deep blue light that shot out of the red-haired man's wand was not as intense, nor as wide as he remembered the one he had cast himself being, but it did the job. The stone wall in front of them blew outwards with a blast that sounded as though an entire arsenal of grenades had all gone off at once, stone shards exploding outwards as a hole three metres wide was blasted in the wall. It was the last thing Harry saw before he slipped into black unconsciousness, his hand unclasping from the red-haired man's as he did so.

Ron Weasley stuck out his hand and halted the form of his best friend as he slid towards the hard stone floor, but the action was completely automatic. His mind was still trying to process what had just happened. To say that what he had just seen was impossible was a gross understatement. Somehow Harry, who had looked like death warmed over from the minute he had seen him in his cell, had cast a powerful spell, using another wizard's wand - only barely _touching_ said wand for Merlin's sake! – that had blasted through the formidable protections surrounding Azkaban like they were paper. He should not be capable of lighting a candle with his own wand, and he had just destroyed probably around five to six tons of solid granite, completely pulverising the stone, protected by some of the strongest protective charms that could be employed in buildings. And where had he learned that spell anyway? It was well beyond anything he himself had ever learned at Hogwarts, and Harry had been imprisoned after only 2 years of magical education!

Ron recognised, however, that here and now was not the time or place for such questions, not with an escape to complete and Dementors on the way. He tucked his wand back into the holster on his left forearm and scooped Harry up into both arms, carrying him bodily.

"Come on!" he shouted to Sirius, Remus and Justin, who were all standing there, totally shell-shocked, although whether that was from the blast or the fact that Harry had done the impossible Ron could not be certain. Then he leapt into the ten metre long tunnel that Harry had created in the walls.

Empirically speaking, there was no real difference between the air inside the prison and the air outside it, but Ron had never tasted anything so sweet as the first lungful of air he drew in after clambering out of the massive hole in Azkaban's walls. They were out and they were practically home free! All that remained was to make a mad dash to the shores of the island. They could Portkey away from the shallows of the island, where the wards had their boundaries. Heedless of the other three, he made that dash, leaping over the fallen body of a guard whose throat was a blackened, burned mess, only briefly wondering how that had happened before he reached the shore. He ran into the shallow water like a five-year-old on their first day at the beach. Lowering Harry's legs to the grey sand, he fumbled in his robes for the return Portkey he carried. They all had one so there was no need for him to wait, but he looked behind him anyway, and saw Sirius, Remus and Justin trailing him by a good ten yards despite his burden. He took out the wristwatch that had belonged to his mother's brother, Fabian Prewett. She had planned on giving it to Harry for his coming-of-age present since it was tradition for parents to give their children watches on that day, and his mother had considered Harry one of her own. He would pass it on as soon as Harry was lucid enough to understand the significance of the gift, which might be sooner than he had dared hope judging by Harry's cool performance under fire just a minute ago. By that time, the other three had caught up. They crowded around, each putting a finger on the watch, and Ron ensuring that Harry also had some contact, then Remus tapped the Portkey with his wand, whisking them away, leaving behind the violated fortress with the gaping hole that would not be concealed anytime soon in its walls as a mute testament that _something_ important had occurred that day.

* * *

_Rewritten 12/5/8_


	2. Recovery

For disclaimers, warnings and pairing notifications, see Chapter 1.

Author Note: Well, here's chapter 2 rewritten. The changes here are more obvious. The main criticisms I was responding to in this chapter were: Harry recognised Ron too quickly, Harry forgave wizarding society too easily, there was insufficient reason for Harry to hate Justin as much as he did (actually the change I made here is nothing more than an inclusion of a plot point I missed out, I was kicking myself when I realised it had not made it into the final cut of the chapter). Also comments on the ease and speed of Harry's recovery influenced some of the action here, particularly Harry's thoughts at the end. I'm not good with the whole insane person recovering mode of thought, which was why I originally thought to skip over the issue entirely, so it would be nice if you guys could give me your verdict on how I did at conveying Harry as partially but not fully recovered from the effects of Azkaban. There were a couple of other points attached to the original of this chapter that I haven't yet addressed because the updated version doesn't quite cover the same ground. Rest assured they will be addressed!

* * *

Harry Potter blinked his eyes blearily as he tried to focus beyond the blindingly intense rays of sunlight that were shining down on his face.

"Welcome back to the land of the lucid, mate," said a voice.

He turned in the direction of the voice and was confronted by a man with bright red hair, sky-blue eyes and many, many freckles. He only knew of one set of people whose men carried all three of those characteristics: the Weasleys. The question was which one was he confronted with here? As he sat up in bed he considered the question. He did not think it was Mr Weasley. Even before he had gone to prison, Mr Weasley had looked noticeably older than the man in front of him now. That meant that it was one of the sons, not all of whom he had met, or at least he did not think he had met all of them. He could recall Ron mentioning that there were six, but he could only remember four at the moment. It could be any one of them, or even one of the two he did not know, unless he had merely invented those two. It would not be the first time he had caught himself inventing people. Twelve weeks or so into his imprisonment he had hallucinated his mother and father into his cell. He _knew _that they could not have visited him in prison, they were dead. Then a year later he had begun a fast friendship with his cellmate Oliver, only to discover mid-conversation six months later that he was actually talking to a round-shaped stone in the wall. He was getting off the point, however, which was to try and work out who exactly he was talking to, and whether they were real or not.

He decided to simply go for the throat and ask, it usually helped things along immensely, or at least it always had before, except with the Dursleys, who could not abide conversation of any sort from their detested magical relative, let alone actual questions from him. It had been one of the cardinal rules of living with the Dursleys, never ask questions. Hogwarts had been different though, or at least he thought it had. He wondered why it was so hard to remember. He was getting off point again, and the silence was getting a bit long and heavy now.

"Who are you? Where is this?" God his voice sounded horrible! He wanted to slap a hand over his mouth, and discovered that he could not move. He looked around from side to side, but could not discern what was holding him in place. There appeared to be nothing there, but he could not move his arms or legs. Perhaps he was still in prison and this was what passed for a visit? If so then it was _too_ _damn_ _late_ for the Weasleys to be visiting him. Where had they been for the last six years? He added a third question to his barrage.

"Why can't I move?"

This sparked a reaction, but not quite the one he was expecting. Embarrassment.

"Sorry about that, mate," Weasley said, "You've been thrashing around more than usual in the last couple of weeks. We had to tie you down to stop you from doing yourself an injury. Tell you what, I'll just…"

He took out a wand and waved it in Harry's direction. Harry immediately felt a pressure that he had not even realised was there lift itself from around him. Experimentally he tried to move a hand, and found that he could now raise his arms quite easily.

"Thanks," he said neutrally, "But you didn't answer my other questions. Who are you, and where is this?"

Ron sighed.

"Sorry, mate, I guess I was hoping you'd recognise me, even if it has been a long time. I'm Ron, Ron Weasley, and this place is called Shell Cottage. It's in Primrose Valley, just outside the town of Filey."

Harry had the frame of reference instantly. Ron, Ron who had been the only one to stand up for him at his farce of a trial, Ron who had defied an entire room of people much older and much more powerful than himself for the sake of his friend. Who had walked off the witness stand to jeers and catcalls after making the most comprehensive praises that Harry had ever received in his life. But then Ron who had never once written him, or visited. The visiting he could understand, his parents probably didn't allow him to, dangerous would-be murderer and all that. But how hard would it have been to send an owl? Ron was the one Weasley he felt most equivocal about. On the one hand he would be eternally grateful for his support at the trial, on the other hand he was disappointed that the man had never once appeared to give Harry a second thought in the six years of his imprisonment.

"I remember you, Ron," Harry said quietly, "You stood by me at my trial. I knew you were _a _Weasley, I just didn't know which."

Ron seemed to accept that, as he just shrugged.

"I guess it has been a long time."

"Six years," Harry said, his voice heavy with hidden meaning.

"I know," Ron replied, clearly not getting it. Harry decided to spell it out for him, he owed the man at least a chance to explain himself after the trial.

"You never wrote, never visited me," Harry did his best to keep a mild and even tone, but he could hear it wavering with suppressed anger and resentment. He wondered if Ron picked up on it.

Comprehension dawned on Ron's face, or at least Harry thought it must be comprehension. He would need to spend time getting to know Ron's reactions again, if he still wanted to talk to him after he heard his excuses that was.

"We wanted to, mate, I swear" his words were coming out quickly now, as though he was against the clock, "I tried to write a couple of times, but they got sent back to me. The second one came back with a note warning me that I was risking being associated with your crimes because of the letters and my testimony. After that…" Ron shrugged, looking vaguely ashamed, although again Harry could not say for sure, "I'm sorry mate, but I admit we backed down after that. If you weren't even going to _get _the letters, then we didn't see any point in trying to send any more."

Harry hated to admit it, but it was a good excuse. He wanted to be angry, he wanted to rail and curse, to hate Ron for leaving him all alone in that hell-on-earth for six years, but that annoying voice in the back of his head kept him from blowing up. He tried to reason with the voice that there must have been _some_ way to get in touch with him. But the annoying voice only had one answer for that: _name one_, it taunted him. His mental battle was interrupted as Ron dropped something on the bedside table. It was obviously heavy because it made a satisfying bang on the hard wood surface. His head whipped around in shock, in time to see Ron settling back into his chair. He looked at the table, and saw that the object Ron had dropped on the table was a large, leather bound book. He extracted a hand from under the bedcovers and reached over to turn the book's spine towards him. There was no title.

"What's this?" he asked.

"Letters," was Ron's one-word answer.

"Letters?" now _he_ was the one not getting it.

"To you, from us."

"_Oh_," Harry paused for a moment, "I thought you gave up."

"We gave up _sending _them mate, not writing them. It was Hermione's idea, kind of a way to feel like you were still with us, even if it was only in spirit. We did miss you, you know."

Harry considered the thickness of the book. Apparently they had missed him indeed. In contrast to before, he felt like a heel for all the dark thoughts he had had for Ron and Hermione during his time in prison. Suddenly a new thought struck him.

"Where _is _Hermione, anyway? Is she alright?"

Ron looked like he had been kicked in the gut. The raw pain was evident on his features, even to Harry, who was not that familiar with his expressions yet.

"She…Hermione's dead, mate. It's been almost two years now."

The feeling deepened, 'heel' was no longer an adequate word for what Harry felt of himself now. He had thought horrible things of Hermione, and now he would not even get the chance to make them up to her. Now half of him hoped that the book of letters contained nothing but spiteful notes, telling him how much she hated him for turning Dark. Even though he _knew _that it would not be so, it would make him feel a lot better. He was afraid to read, now, afraid to hear her express any sort of caring for him when he had not returned the sentiment, would never get the chance to return it. Even the good memories he had left of their friendship would be tainted by the knowledge that he had spent a good portion of his life hating the girl for no good reason. He guessed he must have looked pretty stricken himself, because Ron spoke again.

"I'm sorry, mate, I didn't mean to just drop that one on you. It just still stings a bit to talk about her, you know?"

He nodded.

"How?" was all he asked, but no more needed to be said.

"Fighting," Ron said, a light in his eyes, probably one of pride Harry guessed, "We were part of the rearguard of Hogwarts when Voldemort finally invaded the castle. It was pretty heavy going. A lot of Death Eaters died that day. We were covering for the last few people that needed to be evacuated from the castle, Hogsmeade villagers and so on. We were actually doing pretty well until Voldemort got Professor Dumbledore, then the whole thing turned into a rout. No one else could match the Dark Lord, he was killing left and right, so we ran. She must've gone down in the retreat, plenty of people died that day, and the school was sealed by Voldemort the same day. Didn't re-open until September when Voldemort turned it into a school for the Dark Arts. No telling what they did with the bodies, probably just Vanished them I guess."

Harry attempted to process all the information that had just been conveyed to him obliquely by Ron's anecdote. Voldemort back, Dumbledore dead, Hogwarts a school for the Dark Arts, what happened? When he voiced the question, however, Ron looked a little embarrassed.

"Sorry, mate, but I don't think now's quite the time to give you a history lesson for the time you've spent inside. I'm not really the right person to tell you the whole story, although I promise you that I will be there when you hear it all. There's a lot more to this than even I know fully. When you're up and about again, I'll introduce you to a couple of people and we can have a long talk about it, alright? For now that important thing is getting you out of that bed."

Harry guessed he could see the sense in that, and he definitely agreed that he wanted out of the bed. He had not grown to love the Hospital Wing at Hogwarts, despite having wound up in there three times in two years, and this room felt much the same to him. He said as much to Ron.

"I hear you, mate," he said sympathetically, "It'll be a few more days I think. You were in a right mess when we brought you back here."

"Azkaban is unjustly famed for its creature comforts," Harry retorted dryly, "Who is 'we' anyway? At least tell me who I have to thank for my newfound freedom."

"Errr, well me, obviously, and two old friends of your father, Remus Lupin and Sirius Black. Apparently they both went to school with your dad, same year, same house and they all got on like a house on fire. Sirius is actually your godfather, and it was only because he was in Azkaban himself that he didn't take you in. Remus is a werewolf, but a decent guy for that. Dumbledore hired him as Defence Professor for our third year."

Ron left it there, no need to mention Justin's involvement just yet. He did not want to do _anything_ to set his best friend off, not so soon after he just got him back. Unfortunately, Ron's brilliant plan was completely scuppered by the opening of the door to the room, and Justin's dark blond haired, pale-skinned, brown-eyed head poking in.

"Hey Ron, you can take a break if you like, I'll watch him for the next couple of hours."

Ron groaned internally. He should have considered Murphy's Law before opening his mouth. Deciding to get it over with now that an explosion was inevitable, he shook his head.

"No thanks Justin, I'll stay a little longer."

"Okay then," Justin said, perfectly cheerfully, and then backed out again, all without noticing that Harry was awake and watching the interruption in bemused confusion. When the blond-haired man had exited again he turned back to Ron.

"And that was?"

"Justin Finch-Fletchley," Ron said, wincing and waiting for the explosion.

It took Harry ten very long seconds to place that name in his hazy memory.

"_WHAT??_"

Ron was compelled to slide his chair back six inches to protect his ears from Harry's ear-splitting shout. He also gripped his wand tightly, ready to restore the magical bindings that were holding Harry down before.

"Calm down, mate, you need to stay calm," he attempted to placate his best friend. Harry seemed to listen to him, until he spoke again, at which point Ron realised that Harry was not calm at all. The voice Harry used now chilled Ron to the core. It was colder than a howling arctic wind, and the menace was palpable.

"What is that bastard doing here? How _dare_ he come within miles of me?"

"Harry," Ron said, "The man was _thirteen_, and he didn't even do anything to you. You know his father and brothers all died not long ago, Voldemort had a purge of Muggles connected to our world and they were killed."

"Good," Harry said venomously too caught up in his personal hatred to even register the second hint Ron had unintentionally dropped about the current state of things, "I hope they suffered as much as I did. Those bastards left me with at least one broken rib, breaks in both my shins and more cuts and bruises than even Uncle Vernon used to give me. Do you have _any_ idea what the effects of a Dementor are on the sensation of physical pain?"

Ron shook his head, he was not aware of anything like that.

"They amplify it," Harry said flatly, "Night and day for months I had to feel everything magnified ten-fold or more. Some of those cuts got infected in that hell, it's a miracle I didn't die because the Dementors must have amplified that as well, I've had infections and fevers, but never like that, and thanks to the oh-so-selective methods of Dementors for stealing memories from their victims, I remember EVERY SINGLE SECOND!"

He was back to screaming again, and he was getting red in the face. Ron was truly afraid now. Afraid that his friend's grip on sanity was about to shatter once more. The windows in the room shattered suddenly, the glass blowing outwards in very tiny shards that shredded a few plants in the garden. Faint tinkling sounds suggested that the windows were not the only things to be broken either, but it seemed to give Harry some kind of release because he collapsed back to a prone position in the bed.

"I hate him," Harry mumbled, albeit loud enough for Ron to still hear. He was still in shock from Harry's announcement. He had never known that Dementors could do that, amplify physical sensations. He wondered if anyone did. The sound of running footsteps down the hall brought Ron out of his thoughts quickly. He prayed that it was not who he thought it might be, but as the door opened he remembered Murphy's Law again. Sure enough Justin came barrelling into the room once more.

"Ron! Are you okay? What the hell happened just then?"

Harry's attention could not help but be drawn by Justin near-shouts and he found himself once again confronted by one of the people whom he hated with a vengeance.

"_YOU!!_ GET OUT! GET OUT!"

He was red in the face again as he screamed at Justin. For his part Justin was looking at Harry in shock that he was awake, and no small amount of fear, which was eminently justifiable given the murderous mask of rage that was on Harry's face at the moment. A flick of Ron's wand restored the magical bindings securing Harry to the bed.

"Justin, leave now," Ron barked in the voice that had caused younger students to run that little bit faster when he had commanded the student body during the defence of Hogwarts itself. Justin needed no second urging and left the room, and not a moment too soon as a second burst of magical power tore through the bindings holding Harry to the bed and also ripped up the floor where Justin had just been standing.

It was twenty long minutes before Ron emerged, looking decidedly haggard, from the room to find Justin waiting for him, looking worried.

"Well I guess that answers that question for you Justin," Ron said wearily. It had not gone well at all, even after Justin left, but eventually Ron had managed to calm Harry down. Justin nodded, but he did not look any better.

"I expected it," he said, "But I had no idea he would hate me that much."

"That's because you had no idea how bad it was for him. You remember those breaks in his tibias that we had to re-break and then set properly? And the shards of rib we found lodged in his liver?"

Justin nodded. Harry's horrible physical condition would have had Madam Pomfrey screaming her head off after just one look, let alone everything they had discovered with the aid of diagnostic spells. It was a very good thing that they had, all four of them, had experience tending wounds on battlefields and Justin had begun his training under Madam Pomfrey as a healer after Fifth year. It had taken some skilled spell-work, an entire battery of specialised potions and six months of enforced bed-rest to solve Harry's numerous and serious problems.

"That was the result of your father and brothers, mate, and apparently one of the side-effects we were unaware of in Dementors is that they amplify pain."

"Oh, hell."

"Exactly."

* * *

Predictably enough, Harry's outburst set back his recovery by a couple of weeks as the powerful bursts of magic he had let loose in his tantrum took their toll on his already weakened body. Justin was now barred from his room altogether, and so Ron, Sirius and Remus took turns watching the Boy-Who-Lived. Harry was very wary of the two older men, but at the same time very drawn to them, both since he was in their debt for his release from Azkaban and because they were one of the very, _very_ few links Harry had with his parents. Some days he was eager to hear their stories of the time they had spent in school with his father, smiling absently at the many tales of mischief, the incredibly long saga of the romance between his father and his mother and other such anecdotes. Other days he was silent and withdrawn, often feigning sleep but watching them from behind mostly closed eyelids. The men took his mood-swings in stride, it was not as though they had not been expecting it. Harry knew virtually nothing of them, and they had never come forward to be there for him when he was on trial. Sirius' excuse, Harry had accepted readily enough, since it was something they shared in common. Remus, however, had more difficulty explaining his position since Harry had not grown up with wizarding prejudice against werewolves, and so took a long time to understand that having Remus stand up for him at the trial would most likely have hurt his case.

It was on the eleventh day, however, that Harry finally cracked. He had been putting it off ever since Ron dropped the book of letters on his bedside table that first day. The thing genuinely frightened him. In moments of self-analysis he thought that perhaps it was because the book was sure to expose for lies many of the assumptions he had made about his friends while he was in prison. He should have had more _trust_, he who was angry with the world for misjudging him had done exactly the same thing with Ron at least, and now that he thought about it almost certainly with Hermione too. And if he was honest with himself, which he tried to be, his error was far graver. After all the vast majority of the wizarding world knew nothing about him, only what they read in the papers and the history books. He on the other hand, had known Ron and Hermione intimately, had seen right from the first year that they would follow him into and through any danger. What then had possessed him to think that they would abandon him? He had no excuse, at least none that sounded good to his own ears. So he tried to avoid the letters, if he did not know, then the guilt was assuaged by the possibility that he was incorrect, at least for Hermione. The rationalisation was totally hollow, even to his own mind, but he was not ready yet to give up his bitterness against wizarding society, and he knew that he could not rightly blame them if he had committed the same error. So he put it off, and put it off, and put it off. But after eleven days the thought of the book was burning a hole in his conscience. Ron glanced at it occasionally when it was his turn to watch him, and he fancied that he could see a look of disappointment in his one-time friend's eyes that it had not moved an inch since his last visit, or was that his imagination?

Whether it was or not, after eleven days he could bear it no longer. He was alone for once, a rarity in itself. Remus had ducked out to go to the loo, and neither Sirius nor Ron seemed to be coming in to take over watching him. His hands trembled as he pulled himself up into a sitting position in the bed. The trembling multiplied as he reached out for the book of letters. His hands were shaking so badly that he was afraid that he would drop the thing if he picked it up, so he just rested his hands on the leather binding, running his fingers over the mottled black surface. After a few moments his tremors had abated enough that he no longer risked dropping the book, so he picked it up, momentarily surprised by its weight, or was it his imagination making it heavy like the weight of error that it carried? He set the book down in his lap and took a few deep breaths. He could do this, he could face his friends' caring. When had he got to the point where that was something to be afraid of? Taking a deep breath he opened the cover of the book…

* * *

_Dear Mate,_

_I know the verdict just got handed down this afternoon, and I can't believe it either. How can anyone believe any of that Dark Wizard rubbish? And as for that bit about how you tried to kill my sister, let's just say it's a good thing Ginny's still laid up in the Hospital Wing. You've never seen scary until you've seen her in a snit, and believe me she would be in a snit after what they said about you and her. Don't worry though, Professor Dumbledore believes us. With him on your side, you'll be back at Hogwarts in a week. Fred and George are already planning your 'Welcome Back' prank. See you soon. _

_Ron. _

Harry could not help but smile sadly at the naiveté demonstrated by Ron's first letter. If only the world was as simple as Ron had thought back then. He turned the page to the next letter.

_Dear Mate,_

_I know you didn't get my last letter, it got sent back to me by the Ministry. Here's hoping this one gets to you. Just thought you'd like to know that Hermione's going to get Unpetrified tonight! Don't tell anyone when you get back, but I actually kind of missed her nagging us about work. She'll be really disappointed that you're not here when she wakes up. I'm not sure exactly what the hold-up is on that, I mean it's been more than two weeks now but Professor Dumbledore doesn't seem to have done anything. Maybe I'll ask Professor McGonagall to remind him about it. Mum keeps saying he's a busy man, but this is important stuff! _

_Ron_

_Dear Harry,_

_I know this sounds really inadequate, but I'm so sorry to have heard what's happened. They just can't do this to you, they just can't! Ron and I are going to do everything we can to get you out of there as soon as possible. The Headmaster told us this morning that he was doing everything he could. He's letting me help with the legal research. Don't you give up Harry Potter. We'll see you free, soon. _

_Love,_

_Hermione_

_Dear Mate,_

_As you can guess from her letter, Hermione's back with us. Ginny got let out of the Hospital Wing this morning as well! She was really upset from hearing what happened to you as well, although she didn't go off like I was expecting her to. She spent all morning talking to Professor Dumbledore. I'm not sure what that's all about, but afterwards Professor Dumbledore called us into his office and told us he was going to do everything he could to get you out of there. _

_Hermione gets to help with the research (no surprise there, is there?) and I'm helping her a bit. Professor Dumbledore mainly told me to keep an eye on Ginny. I'm not sure how that's going to help you out mate, but if it helps you then I'm all for it. Hermione just showed me her letter, and I agree with her last bit. We'll see you soon._

_Ron. _

Harry felt like someone had kicked him in the guts, hard. Four letters in and he was already close to tears. He could not believe how wrong he had been about his friends. They had not wasted any time whatsoever in getting on his case (in more ways than one). He turned the page again.

_Dear Harry,_

_I can't believe the Ministry is stopping your mail! Did you know Ron and I got threats when they returned our last letters?! Apparently we're in danger of being 'accomplices to Dark activity', the nerve! I'm sure that's not legal, although I'm still looking into it. Anyway I'm going to keep writing these, even if I can't send them. It's better than writing a diary, and it makes me feel like you're still with us. _

_I miss you Harry, Ron only seems to talk about you and Quidditch, and without you there to explain it to me in English I'm not following half as well as I used to. I'm still spending all my spare time helping the Headmaster with his research. Ron helps too, but he has to look after his sister too, she's pretty upset about something. I guess whatever happened in that Chamber was horrific. _

_Yesterday she went with the Headmaster to the Wizengamot, where he made a speech about your innocence in front of the Wizengamot. I saw his prepared speech a bit, and I thought it sounded really impressive, so maybe I'll get to give this to you very soon. _

_Love, _

_Hermione. _

After this there seemed to be letters detailing Hermione's holiday. She had written them as though nothing had happened at all, as though he was simply at the Dursleys. The simple discussion of every-day things was somehow more powerful by far than consistent promises to help him out of prison. He noted that there were none from Ron, and wondered why that was, but got his answer about half a dozen letters later.

_Dear Mate, _

_I'm sorry, it's been a while since my last letter, but the Ministry stopped your mail, and Hermione and me got threats back from them not to send any more, so I didn't see the point of writing over the summer. Hermione said that it might help us though, she's right, I do miss you mate. She also said that when you come back to us, we can give you these and it'll help. Jiggered if I see how that works, but I guess it can't hurt, sometimes the nutcase ideas that these Muggles come up with make my head spin, but just in case she's right, I'm going to do this too. I guess this is going to be a long one because I should tell you what happened over the summer. _

_Dad won the Ministry Lottery back at the start of the summer, and Ginny was still really down from the whole Chamber thing, so we all took off to Egypt for a holiday, to see my eldest brother, Bill. He works out there as a Cursebreaker for Gringotts, so he knows all the best tombs to visit, and he even knows a lot of the history. Don't tell Hermione, mate, but Bill does a lot better job of teaching history than Binns does. He makes it seem like a great story with, you know, adventure and danger and all that stuff. Anyway, that's not the point. We toured the tombs and Bill took us into a few of the cleared out ones. He even showed us a few of the cursed ones that the Cursebreakers have marked but haven't dealt with yet. They have wards up so that you can see the spells, it would almost look pretty if the curses weren't very, very nasty. _

_For a while I thought about changing out electives and taking the same ones Bill took, but Arithmancy is just so far over my head mate, there's just no hope for me, even with Hermione's help. Anyway, while we were there, Bill and Ginny spent a lot of time talking, and just before we left, he pulled me aside and asked me to watch out for her at school. I'm going to try and convince Hermione to let her hang around with us. When you get back, I hope you won't mind if we keep letting her hang around? She can be a little annoying sometimes, but my sister's great, we used to be really close when we were younger. I think you'd like her, at least I hope you will. _

_The other big news of the holiday is that Sirius Black escaped from Azkaban. There was big uproar about it at the beginning of August, and the whole country is out looking for him. He's a mass murderer, killed thirteen Muggles and one wizard with one curse not long after the downfall of You-Know-Who. I reckon he doesn't really have a hope in hell of staying on the run, but it did get me thinking, maybe you could break out too. If I ever get the chance, I'll ask him how he did it, and then we'll come get you, me and Hermione, and maybe Ginny too. That's a promise Harry. _

_Ron._

The letters continued, detailing the start of their third year, and their efforts to juggle classes and his case, which they were still working on. They seemed upbeat, and they always assured him that they would see him soon, he guessed more for their own benefit than his. Ron wrote news in for Ginny, who seemed to join their group to form a trio again fairly seamlessly. It was therefore not a surprise when he saw a letter from her appear around Halloween time, the content of the letter, however, was much more shocking.

_Dear Harry,_

_Madam Pomfrey thinks it's a good idea for me to write down my thoughts and feelings, and as you can probably imagine, I've rather gone off diaries, so I hope you don't mind too much if I join your writing circle. _

_First off, I wanted to thank you for saving me in the Chamber. Thanks just seems like such a small word, though. I've been back down there, just once and with the Headmaster present, and I've seen the Basilisk for real, not just the hazy half-images that Tom left me with. I can't imagine what it must have been like to face and kill that monster. Anyway, I don't really have a better word, and if I repeated it enough times to make it feel like enough, then this letter would be miles long, and if you ever do read this, then I'm sure you don't want to read pages and pages of 'thanks', but still: Thanks. _

_I'm so sorry about what's happened to you, if anyone should be in that cell, it should be me. I tried to tell them, Harry, really I promise I did. Professor Dumbledore even brought me to the Wizengamot to testify for you just before term ended, but they didn't believe me. I don't know what else to do. Again, sorry seems like such a small word for this. I have no idea what Azkaban's like, what you're going through. I know that I would change places with you in a heartbeat, though. If anyone deserves it, then I do, but instead you're there in my place, and to make it worse, I've stolen your place here too. _

_Bill asked Ron to watch out for me at school, and he and Hermione have been letting me hang around. I do, because without them I wouldn't really have any friends at all. I didn't get to make any last year, and this year anyone who stands up for you is definitely not popular, but anytime we're together, I just feel like it should be you here and me there. I've got your friends, and you've got my jail-cell. I hate myself for doing that to you, Harry. Maybe you should have let me die down there. I'm not sure what else to write exactly, Madam Pomfrey said anything I think or feel, but I'm sure you don't want to read all of that. Most of it's not very pleasant, and I've inflicted enough on you already. _

_Ginny. _

Tears slid down his cheeks as he read the black sentiments contained on such an innocuous sheet of parchment. He had never stopped to consider that he was not the only one in a bad way after the Chamber. The depth of self-loathing evident, even in so few words, was breathtaking. He fervently hoped that she had got better. Although he had often cursed Ginny for never trying to contact him, just like anyone else, he had never held her responsible for what had happened. He had never considered not going into the Chamber after her. He was not sure how he felt about her taking his place with Ron and Hermione, and she was right, that was indeed how it felt to him as well.

Had he known that it had happened while in prison, he would have hated her, assumed that her distraction had prevented his friends from trying to contact or free him. Knowing what he knew now, however, he was not so sure. He supposed that, in retrospect and pragmatism, Ginny had needed friends and his 'spot' was open. He was interrupted from further musing on the subject by the opening of the door. It was not Remus, but Ron who walked back in. He was surprised by the tears running down Harry's face, and crossed the room in four quick strides.

"Mate, what's wrong?"

Wordlessly Harry lifted the book off his lap and showed Ron Ginny's letter. Pain flickered across Ron's face as he recognised the letter. He sat down heavily in the chair beside the bed.

"I know, mate, it was a rough time for her. She was seeing Madam Pomfrey daily for counselling. Mum and Dad were coming up to the castle most weekends to be with her. Hermione and I were helping her out with school. She'd only just barely passed the year on the strength of her assignments because the exams were cancelled. She even moved into Hermione's dorm to be nearer to at least one of her friends.

"The one thing none of us could do for her, though, was be you. She blamed herself so much, Harry. 'Mione swears that some nights she spent the whole night just apologising to you over and over again in her sleep. Five times in the first two months we had to call her on avoiding us, and all she would say about it was that it was your place. We spent hours talking her round, I even thought about making up a fake letter from you to say you would be happy to have her around, of course until I remembered that she knew that you weren't getting your mail."

Suddenly Ron thought about what he was saying, and how it must have sounded.

"Of course we were still working on your case and everything too, Harry. We never forgot about you, how could we? If nothing else, Ginny was reminding us about it every day."

Harry waved off his worry. Ginny's story was shocking and still uppermost in his mind.

"She got better?" Harry asked.

"She got better," Ron confirmed, "Although I'm not entirely sure whether she ever got over you and what happened. Hermione told me once that she didn't think it would ever go completely away unless she got the chance to talk to you."

"I'm glad she got better," Harry said honestly, "And I'm glad you were there for her. At least I didn't spend six years in prison for no reason."

There was a long pause between the two men. Then Harry spoke again.

"I'm sorry."

Ron waited for him to elaborate, but he did not.

"Sorry for what?"

"I hated you, all of you. I spent so many days promising myself that I would make you pay for that, so many nights cursing you, and Hermione along with everyone else, and that's just the times I remember. And now I find that I was wrong, that you were working to help me the whole time. And on top of that I didn't even think about what Ginny must have been going through. It never even occurred to me that it would be just as bad for her."

"Mate you were in _Azkaban _which is hell's outpost on this planet. I'm going to cut you some slack for that, quite a lot actually, and I'm sure Hermione and Ginny would too if they were here."

There was another long pause as Harry digested the ease with which his friend handed out forgiveness.

"Thanks," he said quietly.

This time Ron did not say anything. He simply nodded an acknowledgement.

* * *

_Re-written: 25/5/8_


	3. History and Destiny

For disclaimers, warnings and pairing notifications, see Chapter 1.

Author Note: Alright, this is probably the most important chapter in this rewrite. The vast majority of questions and concerns stemmed from the lack of clarity in my backstory. Hopefully this chapter will go some way towards rectifying that rather major mistake on my part. Other concerns addressed here include why Ron would have thought Ginny and Hermione were dead and the reason why Dumbledore started recruiting students into the Order of the Phoenix. I also hope that I've adequately shown how Harry arrived at the decision not to emigrate to the States or something like that. Anyway, please let me know what you think...

* * *

Over the course of the next fortnight, Harry continued to read the letters while he was confined to bed. His 'writing circle' as they came to refer to themselves, seemed to be religious in writing every week at least. Through their words he caught a hint of the unfolding drama that was their time at school. Apparently his name had quickly become mud thanks to the Ministry's propaganda, which was not particularly surprising, and anyone who still showed sympathy for him became an outcast. Again it caused him a pang to know that, in addition to working tirelessly for his release, his friends were ostracised from their peers because of association with him. He now wondered if he would ever be able to even make it up to Ron for everything that he had gone through on his behalf, let alone if all three of them had still been around. He had been saddened to learn (from Sirius, Ron would not talk about it) that Ginny too was now gone, another victim of this so-called Siege of Hogwarts.

The letters were frustratingly devoid of any real news of what was going on outside the walls of Hogwarts, but Harry was able to get hints of it. His friends could not avoid mentioning the return of Voldemort from wherever he had been hiding at Christmas of what would have been his third year, it coloured the life of the entire school from the moment Dumbledore announced it. The new security precautions that they described on their return from Christmas break told Harry how worried Dumbledore had been. Stricter curfews, the cancellation of all visits to the nearby town of Hogsmeade teacher escorts for all outdoor lessons, even the cancellation of the House Quidditch Cup all indicated that Dumbledore feared for the fate of his students if they should set foot outside of the castle.

Easter of that same year brought new drama that Harry could not quite comprehend. The letters told him of the arrival of a new Headmistress, a woman named Dolores Umbridge, who was in some way connected to the Ministry. What had happened to Dumbledore? Where had he gone? If Ron, Hermione and Ginny knew, they hadn't told him. Then two months later the Umbridge woman was gone, to the immense joy of his writing circle, and much of the school apparently, so he guessed that she must not have been popular, and Dumbledore was back from his sabbatical.

The lack of outside news was made up for, however, by the detailed look he got into the lives of his friends. He read with amusement as Ron and Hermione continued to dance around one another verbally, using their letters to him as sounding boards for their own feelings almost as much as they used them to actually tell him what was going on. It got so bad that he smiled any time the phrase 'don't tell Hermione' or don't tell Ron' turned up. Ginny's letters were still by far the grimmest of them all, but she seemed to be getting better. She still started many letters with thanks for saving her, but after that first letter there were no more apologies for what she thought she had done to him, no more dark self-recriminations. Harry was not sure whether that was an artefact of her really getting over it, or whether she was just hiding it from him, although she was remarkably candid about some other things in her letters, things he was sure she never would have actually written to him, so he chose to believe the former rather than the latter.

Harry was compelled, however, to lay aside his reading at that point as they began the more active stage of his recovery. His first few shaky steps out of the bed were exhausting, but exhilarating at the same time. The potions regime had prevented his muscles from atrophying, but he needed to relearn fine motor skills that he had lost in Azkaban before he could walk properly again. This task took him three weeks, but it was during these three weeks that Harry finally learned the crux of destiny that had governed his life since birth. For such a momentous revelation, it was a fairly innocuous setting.

The eighth day since he first got out of bed, he made it all the way down the hall to the library, seven doors down from his own room. It was a fair way, but Remus was with him every step, encouraging him to take the next, while waiting with a supporting hand if he should need it. Shell Cottage, in spite of its name, appeared to be quite a large house. It was when they got there that he found Sirius and Ron waiting for him and Remus. There was also a third man that Harry did not recognise. All four of them had solemn expressions on their faces, and suddenly Harry had a decidedly grim feeling in the pit of his stomach.

"Morning, mate," Ron tried to lighten the mood with a cheerful greeting, but it fell flat as the atmosphere in the room was already tense.

"Morning," Harry replied, not even attempting to match Ron's feigned light-heartedness, "What's going on?"

"Sit down, Harry," Sirius said.

He shuffled his way over to a chair and sat heavily in it, Remus seating himself in another chair. Justin was not in evidence. Indeed since their first meeting Harry had not seen him again, a fact for which he was very glad. He definitely did not want to see the man at the moment. In spite of Ron's (fairly) subtle insinuations that Justin was not a bad person, Harry was not sure he would ever feel comfortable around him.

"I think it's time mate," Ron said, and no further elaboration was needed for Harry. He was about to get his 'history' lesson. It turned out to be much more than that, however.

"This," Ron started, indicating the unknown man, "is Geoffrey Talwart. He was the Keeper of the Hall of Prophecy before Voldemort came to power, and a close, personal friend of Professor Dumbledore."

"Hello," Talwart said, reaching out a hand for Harry to shake. His grip turned out to be firm, much firmer than Harry would have expected considering that the man looked easily over eighty, and his hand was veined and slender.

"I must say, Mr Potter, it's quite an honour to be finally meeting you, although I wish the circumstances were much better."

Harry was somewhat wary of this kind of greeting, but if Ron trusted this man, then he supposed he could hear him out at least.

"A pleasure to meet you too," was therefore his polite reply, "I'm anxious to hear about what's happened while I've been…away."

"Of course, of course," the man said, "An understandable sentiment. I shall also be sharing something with you that will affect your future as well as your immediate past."

"Right," was all Harry could really say to that.

What followed was a not-terribly-condensed account of six years of dark and difficult times. It began with Sirius' tale of his escape from Azkaban and subsequent search for someone named Wormtail. Sirius had apologised for not returning to Azkaban to get Harry out once he learned that he was in there, but Harry had waved it off. He could understand a reticence to return there, he was not terribly keen on the place himself, and Sirius had spent twice as long inside as he himself had.

Ron recounted in brief the work they had done on Harry's case, which resulted in Dumbledore losing his position on the Wizengamot by early December. Then matters became more serious as he went on to tell what he knew of Voldemort's resurrection just before Christmas. Harry learned of Professor Snape's role as a spy in the circles of Voldemort's followers, the so-called Death Eaters, a fact that caused the sour Potions Master to go up in Harry's estimation. He could not imagine the kind of courage it took to be treacherous against a Dark Lord whose assumed name most feared to speak, to say nothing of his real name. He also heard of the Order of the Phoenix for the first time, Dumbledore's group of men and women volunteers who began preparations to defend Wizarding society against Voldemort.

Fudge sank ever lower in Harry's estimation as the four men between them told how the short-sighted little man had refused to believe Dumbledore's statement that Voldemort was back, even going so far as to have the Order of the Phoenix outlawed. The appearance of the Umbridge woman as Headmistress of Hogwarts suddenly made sense as Harry learned that Dumbledore had been accused of treachery and forced to go on the run. Inevitably, however, Voldemort moved out into the open, a raid on Azkaban to free his incarcerated Death Eaters. Harry shuddered inwardly at the thought that the wizard who had killed his parents and nearly caused his own death three times could so easily have finally finished the job if he had but opened the right cell. Of course at the time he would probably have welcomed death as a respite from his injuries and the effects of the Dementors.

Even Fudge could not deny the incontrovertible evidence of Voldemort's return. At this point Ron and Remus told him that Dumbledore had renewed his campaign to secure Harry's release from prison, although they refused to say why.

"That's best left for the end of all this, mate," Ron told him seriously, so seriously that Harry dropped it right away and motioned for them to go on.

The next part of the story was, he supposed predictable in that it involved battles, some open, some secretly waged. He was moderately impressed by the sound of 'The Fifth Battle of Diagon Alley', even if it was a fiasco for both sides that had apparently taken place in May of what would have been his Fourth year at Hogwarts. Equally impressive to his ears was the so-called Battle of Halloween, which had also taken place in that school year on the appropriate day. Apparently Voldemort must have gathered quite an army somehow, because Remus told Harry that he attacked London, Edinburgh and Stonehenge simultaneously to get at magical families celebrating Samhain. In probably the one and only smart move he ever made, Fudge commissioned a course in Duelling for Hogwarts NEWT students, and then made it required for all students, sending Master Auror Alastor Moody, who Harry gathered was quite a veteran of the corps, to Hogwarts to ensure that all the graduates were capable of defending themselves in a fight.

Dumbledore seemed to have similar ideas, according to Ron he began inducting all those taking the Duelling NEWT into the Order of the Phoenix, providing them with additional training and someone to call on if they were ever in trouble. From that point on the war intensified. Ron told him that by November of that year Fudge had gone so far as to institute a draft into the Auror Corps for all Hogwarts graduates, something he personally had missed out on but which his next-elder brothers, Fred and George, had been compelled to serve.

What would have been Harry's fifth year at school lasted exactly two months, according to Ron, a fact that made Harry start with surprise. All the talk of battles and training had caused him to temporarily forget that they were talking about what was technically a school year. Ron told him that Dumbledore had extended the combat training offered to those taking the Duelling NEWT to the fifth year, and the entire fifth year had volunteered to take it, becoming members of the Order of the Phoenix in the process. In late October, however, Remus told Harry that Voldemort finally managed to achieve the unthinkable and get a significant portion of the Goblin nation to side with him. With their aid, he had swept through the Ministry of Magic, his army of Death Eaters, Werewolves, Vampires and other Dark creatures simply swarming the defences to overtake the underground complex once the wards were dissolved by powerful Goblin magics.

It was on the next day that Hogwarts ceased to be a school and became the headquarters of the Light, although most students chose to remain, training for the defence of the castle and continuing their schooling as and when possible. Fortunately, they were granted respite by Voldemort's decision to consolidate his position in the Ministry and begin reorganising it rather than moving straight on to attack Hogwarts. Ron told him how the mood of the castle was tense, but upbeat as the students and the Order of the Phoenix worked together planning the defence of the castle and training for it as well.

It was not until the New Year, however, when the defences of Hogwarts were tested in battle for the first time in almost a millennium. Voldemort and his army finally moved on Hogsmeade in early January. At first the town proved a tough nut to crack, the defenders had done their work well, turning the once pleasant village into a maze of narrow lanes, vicious traps and killing grounds, through which the Death Eaters ploughed, taking heavy casualties. In the end, however, Voldemort's personal leadership drove the defenders from the town and back to the safety of the castle itself, taking as many of the village's few remaining inhabitants with them as they could.

The Siege of Hogwarts lasted more than six months, and sounded like the history lessons that Harry could only vaguely recall from primary school, when he had learned about knights of the Middle Ages and the wars they had fought. Ron described sallies, assaults and evacuations with a flair that Harry had never known the man possessed. Eventually, however, the same Goblin Curse-Breakers that had gained Voldemort entry into the Ministry of Magic achieved the same feat on Hogwarts, bringing millennium-old wards crashing down and allowing the Dark Lord and his armies entrance to the castle.

Voldemort personally led the attack, and the battle ended with a climactic duel between the Dark Lord and Professor Dumbledore in the Great Hall. Ron told him that the duel went on for more than half an hour, during which all other fighting stopped as Order and Death Eaters alike were entranced by the sight of the two greatest living wizards in no-holds-barred mortal combat. Eventually, however Dumbledore fell, his life ended by Voldemort's favoured weapon: the Killing Curse, and it was at that point, with their leader dead, that the few remaining defenders scattered from the castle to join the cells of the Order that had been snuck out of the castle during the course of the siege.

The last part of the story was, Harry supposed, equally predictable as the Order was reduced to resistance style tactics against Voldemort's government. Raids, sabotage and other underhand actions became common for the scattered Order, but division and dissent had also become common without a clear leader, and eventually the Order simply fizzled out of existence, collapsing into a number of smaller organisations that vied with one another for support almost as much as they worked against Voldemort. Effectively Voldemort had won more than six months before Harry's release as the Order ceased to be effective and became merely annoying. Then finally came the recounting of his own prison-break, the fact that Justin masterminded it, a not-so-subtle hint that he ignored, the problems they had encountered and finally the staggering power Harry had demonstrated in creating their escape route.

As their story drew to a close, Harry could only sit in stunned silence for long minutes afterwards. The story, which had taken the entire afternoon to recount, was as incredible as it was unthinkable. Voldemort in charge of the country, or at least the Wizarding half of it, was a concept that made Harry shudder. Having met with the spectral Voldemort in his First year, and then conversed with the memory of his sixteen-year old self in his Second, two encounters that Harry recalled vividly since he had relived them extensively in the last six years, he could not imagine what state the country must be in.

"So where do I fit into all of this?" Harry asked at length, "What was it that made you finally come after me?"

Ron shifted uncomfortably, trust Harry to see to the core of the hardest topic possible, but he could not _not_ answer his friend. He knew that whichever way he phrased this it was not going to come out well.

"Listen mate, before we go into this any further, I just think I've got to say that you don't _have_ to do anything. All right? You don't owe anyone anything, nothing at all. If you want to tell us all to sod off and emigrate to the States or something then that would be fine."

Talwart made a noise as though he wanted to object when Ron said that, but the redhead scowled quellingly at the older man and whatever objection might have emerged went unvoiced. Nevertheless, Harry noted it, not everyone agreed with Ron's stance on this issue, whatever it was.

"I understand," he said, "Just tell me."

To say that Harry found the next ten minutes shocking was an understatement of epic proportions. Talwart told him of the prophecy, made by Sybill Trelawney just weeks before his birth, of how Dumbledore had known it all and taken steps to protect the two children to whom it could apply and the families of those children. Sirius then took up the tale of how his parents had been betrayed by one of their best friends, how Voldemort had come looking for the one person he believed could defeat him, and had instead met his own demise at the hands of a fifteen month old Harry. Then finally it was Ron who relayed Dumbledore's personal interpretation of the prophecy, how he had instructed his Order of the Phoenix never to attempt to engage the Dark Lord in a duel. If the late Headmaster was correct, then only Harry would ever be able to kill Voldemort.

For minutes after they were done, he just sat there, trying to take in everything that they had just said. If he had thought that events since he had been locked up were shocking, then it was nothing compared to this.

"Mate…please…say something, anything," Ron pleaded, Harry's silence was frightening him because he could not help but wonder if the emotional stress of all these revelations had been too much and his friend had slipped into catatonia. It had been one of the dangers they had been warned against by the many books they had consulted to help research treatments for his insanity.

"I need to think about this."

Ron had never before been so reassured by a dull monotone voice. At least by telling him all these things he had not done permanent damage to his friend. Then the words sunk in as well.

"Well of course you do," Ron said matter-of-factly, "This isn't something you just decide right away. Your life is on the line here, mate, take all the time you need."

Talwart looked ready to object again, if Harry was any judge of expressions, but Ron must have sensed it too, because he turned around once more to look at the older man. This time the elder wizard actually paled at the deadly glare that Ron sent his way, and his objection died a quick and silent death. Then Ron turned back towards him.

"Listen mate, why don't I take you back to your room and you can think about it in there without any of us disturbing you."

Harry just nodded dumbly; still a little shell-shocked at the enormity of the issues he now had to contend with. Then again when had his life ever been simple? He took Ron's proffered hand to help himself up from his seated position, and proceeded to shuffle out of the room, with Ron following in case he should need assistance. None of the other three followed. When they reached Harry's room once more, Ron left him alone with a farewell that he barely acknowledged. He just sat, with his feet hanging off the edge of the bed as he considered the matters that now lay before him.

Within minutes, Harry found himself brimming with rage, the most obvious target for which was the gathering of men sat before him. How dare they ask him to step up and fight with a madman on behalf of a society that had cast him out and condemned him to six years of unthinkable torment? The sheer temerity of it astounded him. For a fleeting moment, Harry felt betrayal well up in him as he wondered whether this prophecy was the only reason why they had freed him from Azkaban. Was he there simply to be their weapon against Voldemort? Did they spring him simply to fight the Dark Lord? And if they did, would they simply cast him back into Azkaban once Voldemort was gone?

He brought that line of thought to a quick halt, however. He had already judged quickly and harshly and turned out to be wrong. He was not about to make the same mistake again. Ron, at least, could not be in this because of the Prophecy. He had been trying to help Harry since the very beginning, since his forceful testimony in Harry's favour at the trial. He had not known of Harry's destiny then, had he?

_He might have_, a nasty voice in the back of Harry's mind whispered, _he might have known all along how important you are_. _Maybe he was keeping it from you, maybe Dumbledore arranged it so that he was your friend, a pair of eyes and ears on the Prophesied One to make sure you fulfilled your fate. _

Harry let the thought roll around in his head for a bit before shaking it. He could not believe that, if he did then where would he draw the line? Would he start believing that Dumbledore had arranged for his parents to die so that he could have his weapon against the Dark Lord? Would he start wondering whether the Philosopher's Stone was left deliberately vulnerable to provide him with a challenge to overcome and to force him to meet Voldemort once again? Would he start believing that Ginny had been given the diary for much the same reasons? Perhaps, if he followed this path of logic, Ginny had been a willing participant in the whole Chamber of Secrets affair?

The thought of Ginny brought up a new tangent in his contemplations. She had died fighting this war, had not even seen her sixteenth birthday. From what Ron had said, she had chosen that, at fifteen she had chosen to remain at Hogwarts and put her life on the line to see Voldemort stopped. Hermione had done the same. Two out of the only three people in the world who had stood by him through thick and thin had believed in stopping Voldemort enough to pay the ultimate sacrifice for it. Now he knew that he was the only one who could do that, the only person who could make their sacrifices mean something. What would they think of him if he were to cheapen their deaths by walking away? How would he ever be able to face them both in the afterlife if his actions meant that their lives had been spent for nothing?

Ron had said he did not owe anyone anything, but that was not true, was it? Truthfully he owed both girls more than he could ever repay. He had wronged them, and Ron too, in the worst way possible, by committing the very same sin against them that had been committed against him. He owed it to the three of them to do everything in his power to help with their cause, just as they had tried to help with his. It was not about Wizarding society at large, it was a personal debt, pure and simple. That was what he tried to tell himself, anyway, and for the most part it worked. He was still a little angry at the circumstances, at the fact that he would be bailing out a society that had caused him to suffer horribly for a crime he had not committed, but he knew that it was what his friends would want him to do.

His deliberations at an end, the next thing he needed to do was to find Ron and tell him. If he was going to do this, they needed to get to work. He was not going to be able to face down the most powerful Dark Wizard of modern times with a Second Year's grasp of magic. He was also not going to be able to do it without his wand. He got up somewhat shakily and stumbled out of the room in search of his red-haired best friend.

It was probably a fortunate thing that he found Ron, Sirius and Remus still in the library, because his legs were about ready to give out on him by the time he got there. The three men looked up when they saw Harry standing, leaning heavily on the doorframe. They hid their expectation flawlessly, but Harry did not believe for a second that they were not eager to hear whether or not he had an answer, so he decided to cut straight to the chase.

"I'm staying," he said clearly.

The relief in the room was palpable, which Harry supposed he should have expected, he was sure that even if none of the three would have admitted it they had all hoped that he would have stayed. He wondered darkly for a moment whether they would have tried to change his mind if he had opted to leave, but crushed the thought as quickly as it formed. It was unreasonable of him not to expect them to be happy that he was agreeing to help them in the struggle against a monster.

"Are you sure, Harry?" Sirius asked.

"Yeah," Harry replied, "I'm sure."

"Is it alright if we ask for your reasons?" Remus asked quietly.

Harry shrugged. He saw no harm in it.

"Honestly?" he asked rhetorically, "I know you said I don't owe anyone anything, Ron, but that's not entirely true. I owe it to Hermione, and to Ginny, to make sure that they didn't give up their lives for no reason. They, and you, went through a lot for my cause if I understand all the stuff in your letters rightly; it seems only fair that I do what I can for your cause. Plus I've been at the top of Voldemort's hit list since I was one year old. Running isn't really an option for me; he'll find me eventually. I'd far rather face him on my terms than have him run me into the ground and then slaughter me."

The three men nodded.

"Where do we start then?" Harry asked. Now the decision was made, he was anxious to get going.

"We start by getting you walking properly again mate," Ron said, taking over, "Then we'll get to work on real instruction. For now, I figured a bit of a refresher wouldn't be a bad thing, so I've brought you all the old First and Second year textbooks and we can work on some theory. Then, once you're up and about we can get you a new wand."

"A new wand? What happened to my old one?"

Ron winced, he had forgotten that he had not mentioned this before. Fortunately for him, Sirius took over.

"All lifers in Azkaban have their wands destroyed, Harry, I had to get a new one too when I got out and got my name cleared. Dumbledore tried to save yours for you, claimed something about it sharing cores with Voldemort's wand, although how he could know that I have no idea. But Fudge just moved too fast for anyone to stop him. We'll have to make a trip to a wand-crafter to get you a new wand. Mainstream wandmakers are out, Voldemort has them all monitored, and every wand is registered with the new Magical Law-Enforcement department. But there are a few wand-crafters out there, mainly family members or long-time friends of members of the Order of the Phoenix, who'll craft wands for us on the sly."

"What's the difference between a wandmaker and a wand-crafter?" Harry asked, genuinely curious, "How come Voldemort is only monitoring one and not the other?"

Remus got into teacher mode and took over the explanation from Sirius.

"Wandmakers mass-produce their wands, Harry, they take generic components, the wood from trees known to produce decent wands, cores composed of materials known to be good for channelling a wizard's powers and so on, to craft their wands. The result, while good, is fairly generic. People buy from wandmakers because they are both better publicised and generally cheaper. Wand-crafters, on the other hand, only create wands to order. You have to go in for series of tests to determine the exact combination of materials to make the perfect wand for your personal use. The result is a wand that's much more attuned to you personally, and thus much more powerful. However crafted wands are so personal that usually they can only be used by the person they are crafted for. Also if your wand turns out to require particularly esoteric materials, then a crafted wand can become _very_ expensive, so few people use them. It's hardly worth the time and effort that would be required to police all the wand-crafters out there, they account for probably less than half a percent of all wands in use. Voldemort may be powerful but he does not have unlimited resources, Harry."

"If crafted wands are that expensive, how am I going to be able to pay for one?" Harry asked.

Ron laughed at that.

"Mate you're richer than Merlin, probably richer than the rest of wizarding Britain put together."

Harry looked quizzical, so Sirius took it upon himself to explain.

"I don't know how much of your family history Dumbledore told you, Harry, but you at least know that your father, James was a pureblood wizard, right?" Harry nodded so Sirius continued, "Well the Potters are actually descended from a very old wizarding line, the Peverell family, have you ever heard of them?"

"I think Professor Binns may have mentioned them once or twice," Harry said, "I never really got to the point where I could pay attention in his class."

He looked rather embarrassed by this admission, but Sirius and Ron just laughed, while Remus looked faintly amused.

"Not to worry, pup, I never really listened to that old bugger either, he was no less boring as a living teacher than he is reputed to be as a dead one. Anyway, the Peverells were very old; they can trace their line back to practically the dawn of history. There are some real luminaries in your family tree Harry, names even Muggles know about like Nero and Julian, the Roman emperors, or Croesus, the king of Lydia, not to mention Godric Gryffindor and Salazar Slytherin, people like that. They're also very, very rich, and only three branches of the family exist. One was cut off at about the same time that the family actually took the name Peverell, and one peters out a couple of generations after Salazar Slytherin, but the other one continued, and they married well for several generations. Some shrewd investments over the centuries, like in the Nimbus company, a share of Ollivanders, even some stuff in the Muggle world like the British railroads of the 1800s, have really paid off too. Your father was the sole heir of his branch of the family, so he inherited nearly a thousand million Galleons. If Gringotts gave interest, you would be able to practically buy out Voldemort's control of the British wizarding world by now."

Harry was goggling now. For the second time that day he could not believe his ears, except this time it was a good kind of surprise rather than a feeling of impending doom.

"But…but what about Voldemort? Surely he would have gotten his hands on all that when he took over?"

Remus and Sirius both shook their heads.

"That gold is in trust with the Goblin nation, Harry," Remus told him, "They're bound by magical oaths to safeguard it against everyone except the designated heir, unless it can be proven that the family has died out, in which case the gold reverts to the Ministry Treasury, with the expectation that a portion will be shared with the Goblins and a portion will be handed out in donatives to the wizarding populace at large. We guess that that's why Voldemort has been searching all over for you ever since he got into power. If he can prove you're dead, then he gets an enormous amount of gold for his treasury."

"I see," Harry said, although he wasn't quite sure that he did, but so long as he had money and Voldemort could not get at it, that would be enough for now, "So when do we go to get me a new wand? And who do we go to?"

"We'll make an appointment with Elphias Doge," Sirius said, "He was an old friend of Dumbledore's, and he's set himself up with a small shop on Knockturn Alley where he sells all sorts of curios and artefacts, as well as taking orders for crafted wands. He's not the absolute pinnacle of the wand-crafting business, but he's very good, and he won't turn us in."

"In the meantime, Harry," the ever-practical Remus cut in, "I suggest we go down to the kitchen and get something to eat. It's well past dinner time, but none of us wanted to interrupt you before you were done thinking."

* * *

So what do you say? Better or not?


	4. Reunions

For disclaimers, warnings and pairing notifications, see Chapter 1.

Author Note: Well here is the old chapter 3 rewritten. The main criticism that I responded to in this chapter was made by MDR, who stated that my original method for getting Harry back together with Hermione and Ginny was just too unbelievable. He also commented that several of the reactions by Hermione and Ginny were not in keeping with their established characters. I have to admit that MDR was definitely right about the reactions, some of them were embarassingly off-key, especially for Hermione. On the other hand, I'm not so sure that the 'incredible coincidence' factor can really be taken away from the idea that Harry just happens to run into two of his best friends on the one day he visits Knockturn Alley. I've done what I can to make it seem less unlikely, but ultimately I think that's just one of those things you have to accept about stories like Harry Potter, that sometimes that one-in-a-million chance is just going to happen to bring the right elements together to move the story forward. I also added the scene of the crafting of Harry's wand in response to accusations that I had used the wand-crafter idea to give Harry an 'uber-powerful' wand. His wand is a little unusual, but it's hardly out there. The only reason it's not a carbon copy of his old wand is that I wanted to illustrate the fact that Harry is a changed man compared to how he was six years previously, magically changed just as much as anything else. Anyway I hope you approve of the changes I've made, and it would be nice if someone could leave an opinion.

* * *

Elphias Doge was an old man, that was one of the great things about his position. Voldemort's lackeys consistently underestimated him based on his age and his lack of duelling skills. He would not last two minutes in a duel with even the most novice of Sentinels, let alone the trained Auror corps, or the Death Eaters themselves, but that did not mean he could not fight against the Dark Lord and his regime. His contribution to the good fight was to supply the Order with wands.

He had not hesitated, therefore, when Remus Lupin had contacted him to set up a crafting appointment, nor had he protested when the younger werewolf demanded absolute secrecy for the appointment. That was not uncommon for Order members who wanted wands crafted for them, but usually they simply hid in his medium sized stockroom in the back while their wands were being crafted, and he let his assistant, Laylia, take the counter while he did the crafting work in the back.

This time Remus had asked him to close the shop altogether and have no one else present but himself. He knew the werewolf well enough to know that he would not ask for such precautions unless they were warranted, so he guessed that he was going to be crafting for one of the members of the Order that was still on the run from Voldemort, and probably one of the higher-up ones at that. His money was on Ronald Weasley. The red-haired ex-best friend of Harry Potter ranked highly on Voldemort's most-wanted list, and the last Doge had heard Remus was a member of his cell.

He was therefore understandably momentarily surprised to see two dark-haired figures standing before his shop door. He unlocked the door and beckoned both in, closing the door and redrawing the blinds directly behind them. He then cast strong locking charms to supplement the wards that had already snapped into place as a result of the closing of the door. Only then did he turn around to look at his guests, and promptly came within inches of having a heart-attack.

His eyes traced over the thin face that had been revealed when the shorter of the pair had cast back the hood of his cloak. It was the face of someone who had endured unthinkable torments and had still not yet gotten over them, the cheeks slightly hollow, the set of the jaw-line hard and grim. The shocking thing, however, was the eyes. Vivid green, but hard with what looked like pain. The colour was a dead give-away, the one thing about the man that stood before him that was no different from his picture in the 'Wanted' posters that continued to be circulated up and down the country despite the six year difference in age. Doge was looking at Harry Potter, even if his famous scar had somehow been hidden. That was easy enough to do, simple glamours would cover such an obvious mark.

"Great Merlin," he breathed, "It can't be!"

The boy turned to his elder companion, a tall man who could easily have passed for his father or elder brother, were it not for the fact that his eyes were icy blue rather than green. He too had a haunted look to him, although it was much less noticeable than on the boy. Doge thought he looked familiar, but could not quite place him.

"I'm going to get that a lot, aren't I?" the boy asked with a touch of sardonic humour.

The elder man barked a laugh, which suddenly jogged Doge's memory. Sirius Black was an ex-convict, ex-Auror and Harry Potter's godfather, which reinforced the idea in Doge's head that the boy was indeed Harry Potter.

"Yeah, Harry," he replied, confirming Doge's suspicions, "You probably are."

Harry sighed and turned back to him.

"Yes, Mr Doge, I am Harry Potter. Yes I recently escaped from Azkaban with Sirius' help among others. Yes I'm going to be fighting the Dark Lord. Is there anything else you wanted to know?"

"I assume you're the one Remus Lupin asked me to craft a new wand for?" Doge asked, after recovering himself and assuming a business-like manner once more.

"Yes, he is," Black answered.

"Very well," Doge replied, "If you'll come with me into the back, we'll get started."

Harry and his companion followed him through the shop and into the back room, where the walls were lined on one side with jars, and on the other two sides with long wooden poles. In the centre of the room was a large bench which had on its surface a bubbling cauldron and several tools, only a few of which were recognisable, such as the long knife, the small saw and the ladle.

"Please sit down, Mr Potter, and we'll get started," Doge said, conjuring up two chairs side by side in front of the bench with a wave of his wand.

Both Harry and his elder companion sat, while Doge himself hurried over to check the cauldron. It was nearly at the right stage. He conjured three clear glass vials, each about the size of a thumbnail.

"I'd like you fill these three vials for me Mr Potter, one with blood, one with saliva and one with tears if you would."

"What for?" Harry asked, somewhat warily. He knew enough about magic to know that someone with samples of his blood at least could track him anywhere. Was Doge planning to betray them?

"They're vital fluids, Mr Potter, they contain very specific signatures of your power. Together with a scan of your magical aura, a precise reading of them will allow me to determine the wand components that will match you best."

Harry complied, filling the vials with the requested fluids and handing them over. Doge then poured the three liquids into the cauldron and stirred them in before setting the burner to simmer for the next two minutes. In the meantime he took out his wand and did the aura scan. Touching the tip of his wand to a specially treated quill, the results of the scan were transferred from the wand to the quill. Then they had to wait for the potion to be finished, after which, Doge poured some of it into a vial, and then immersed the quill fully in the potion. The quill appeared to be absorbing the potion, for in seconds it was the only thing in the vial. Doge pulled it out and set it point first on a fairly large square of parchment, where it at once set off, writing out various series of complex equations and formulae.

Even though the quill was a blur across the parchment, it took a good two minutes to finish writing out whatever results had been yielded from the examinations. When it was done, however, Doge picked up the parchment and scanned it.

"Tell me about your last wand, Mr Potter?" he requested as his eyebrows climbed higher and higher at whatever he was seeing.

"It was from Ollivander's," Harry replied, "Eleven inches, made of holly and with a phoenix feather core."

"I see," Doge said, frowning, although whether it was at what Harry had said or whatever he was reading, Harry had no idea. At last however he lowered the parchment and looked at Harry.

"Well, Mr Potter, it would appear that you've changed in the years since you got your first wand. The length of your wand will be the same, which was to be expected, a wand's length is determined by the ratio of certain measurements on a wizard's body, including wand-arm length, overall height, distance from heart to brain and a few others. Your ratios have remained absolutely constant as far as I can calculate.

"Holly wood also appears to be unusually suited to you, as my calculations indicate that your ideal wand will be constructed from a mixture of seventy percent holly, thirty percent oak. I had expected that to change, most wizards change woods at least twice in their lives before settling on a good match. Also, although both of those are common woods for the making of wands, it's quite unusual to see a wand that requires more than one kind of wood.

"Your core, however, Mr Potter, your core is the most interesting part of all. Again Phoenix feather continues to suit you, but according to my calculations it will have to be mixed with Basilisk venom _and_ unicorn tail-hair. Again combined cores are not unheard of, but to have three components is unusual, especially given the mix of Light and Dark creatures there. Also I'm quite surprised that your own blood is _not_ on that list. It's generally taken as writ that crafted wands will contain blood from the owner, it's part of what makes them so personalised, but apparently this is not so in your case. It could mean that you are out of tune with yourself, strange as that may sound. I think it may be the result of your lack of education meaning that your magical core's integration into your body has not been fully achieved yet. You may have to return and get a new wand crafted in a few years if you truly want a wand attuned completely to yourself alone."

Harry nodded. He was not surprised to learn that his wand was unusual in nature. He had been an oddity for one reason or another for the first eighteen years of his life, why stop now?

"What now?" he asked.

"Now I get to work," Doge replied, "It will take some time, perhaps an hour or two, the Basilisk venom is quite volatile and I'll have to be careful in handling it, but your part in this is essentially over now. You're free to wait in here and watch or to go outside and peruse my collections while I work."

Having never seen a wand crafted before, Harry opted to remain. Sirius, being over-protective as was his godfatherly prerogative, refused to let Harry stay alone, even with a member of the Order. What followed was the strangest and most incomprehensible piece of magic either man had ever seen. Doge did absolutely nothing with his wand, everything was done by hand or with tools. He took down two poles from the many that lined the room in racks, and carefully measured out an eleven-inch section of each before sawing them off by hand. He then planed the two eleven inch sections down to the diameter of a wand, again by hand.

This done, he laid aside the two lengths of wand wood on the workbench, and crossed the room to the shelves that contained the many jars. He took down three, unscrewing two straight off and pulling out what looked like a long piece of silver string and a long, slender golden feather that had red edging on one side. Doge then pulled on a pair of dragon-hide gloves and cast a modified Bubblehead Charm over himself and over Harry and Sirius as well. Instead of merely covering the head, the shield encompassed their entire bodies. Then he proceeded to unscrew the third jar, which presumably contained the Basilisk venom. Using a pair of tongs, Doge dipped a vial into the jar and raised it up, bringing up with it a small amount of thick, black liquid. He then carefully lowered the feather and the tail hair one by one into the vial with a second pair of tongs. There was a sharp sizzling sound and clouds of grey fumes rose from the liquid when the three materials came into contact, proving the need for the Bubblehead Charm.

While the feather and the tail-hair steeped in the venom, Doge returned his attention to the shafts of wood he had laid out. Neither Harry nor Sirius could quite explain what he did to them, except to say that he used his sharp knife to incise several runes into each shaft, and then appeared to crush the two shafts together between his hands until they melded into a single wand shaft. The wand shaft was then sawed in half and hollowed out with saw and knife. Finally Doge used the tongs to remove the feather and tail-hair from the vial of venom and placed one in each half of the wand, folding the tail-hair lengthwise until it fit and flattening the feather against itself until it was slender enough to fit into the half of the wand shaft. Then for good measure, he poured five drops of raw venom into each half of the wand, causing more clouds of grey fumes to escape into the air.

Finally the two halves of the wand were brought together and Doge carved a few more runes into the shaft. Once the sequence was complete, the runes glowed with blue fire and disappeared, leaving smooth wood. The join between the two halves also disappeared, leaving what appeared to be a single piece of wood where there had previously been two. Doge laid the completed wand down on his bench, took up his own and cast a spell that created a strong breeze through the room to clear out any lingering fumes from the Basilisk venom. Only after letting it run for a good five minutes did he end the breeze and cancel the Bubblehead Charms around the three of them. Then he picked the newly crafted wand up off the workbench and presented it to Harry.

The moment Harry touched the wand he knew that it was _his _in the same indefinable way that he had known his first wand was his as well. He felt tingles go up and down his arm and something stirred within him. The only difference was that whereas his first wand had given off a feeling of warmth and shot out red-gold sparks, this one gave off chills as well as warmth, an odd sensation when combined, and the sparks given off were red, gold, silver and green. There was also an odd roaring in his ears, and it was a few moments before he realised that a strong wind seemed to be blowing through the room once again.

Harry was interrupted from contemplating the feel of his new wand when the door suddenly burst inwards with considerable force.

* * *

Hermione Jane Granger kept her wits about her as she and her partner walked down the street that formed part of their assigned patrol route for this evening. Sentinel duty was an often boring, but no less deadly job, that involved lousy pay, awful hours and constant danger, especially patrolling the Knockturn Alley district, which was the roughest all-wizarding area in Britain bar none. It was, however, what she did, not because she actually had any interest in keeping the peace for Voldemort's government, quite the opposite in fact. She had been placed in the Sentinel corps by her cell of the Order of the Phoenix, it was useful to every cell to have at least one person in with law enforcement, in case there was a sudden need to know the times and places of assigned patrols, or just in general to know who was being watched, whose houses and businesses were to be searched this week and other similar titbits of information.

"Wait," her partner hissed beside her, nudging her ribs slightly for emphasis.

She turned to look at her partner, a red-haired woman about four inches shorter than herself with warm brown eyes, countless freckles and a figure generous enough that she was occasionally envious of it. Ginny Weasley, who never ever went by her full name of Ginevra unless you wanted a swift kick or a hex to a sensitive area, had been one of her best friends since they had attended Hogwarts together, and was now the last of that small circle to remain alive and free. Now they were fortunate enough to have been assigned together as permanent partners in the Sentinel corps, taking patrols and watch assignments together as a matter of course. It was pure blind luck that had brought them together, since they were affiliated with different cells of the Order of the Phoenix, and communication between cells had been shaky at best since the fall of Hogwarts.

"What is it?" she asked in concern. She saw nothing, but sometimes the younger girl seemed to have a sixth sense about danger.

"Look," Ginny said, pointing across the street, "The window above Doge's shop is smashed in."

Hermione saw it, and she saw something else too.

"And isn't it a little early for closing time too?" she asked rhetorically, pointing to the drawn blinds in the shop itself.

Even if it was nothing, it was worth checking out. This _was_ Knockturn Alley after all, and besides that Elphias Doge was Hermione's link back to her cell of the Order. The two women crossed the street and walked up to the shop front. Hermione flicked her wrist, bringing her wand from forearm holster to hand, and reached it out to tap on a runic symbol engraved into the doorframe, the equivalent of a doorbell. An audible chime sounded within and the pair waited for someone to answer, but no one did. After about thirty seconds Hermione tried again. They listened for the chime. Again there was no response.

"One more," she said to Ginny, who took out her own wand as she spoke, "Then we break it down."

Ginny nodded and Hermione tapped the rune again. Meanwhile Ginny was muttering softly under her breath while running her wand up and down the hinge-post of the door. Her eldest brother was an expert Curse-Breaker who had once worked for Gringotts. During the Siege of Hogwarts he had taught some of the basic methods of his own arcane craft. Now she examined the wards that surrounded this shop. Almost at once she smiled, Doge was a crafty old so-and-so. His wards were as solid as a rock, but she recognised the design as one of her brother's commissioned solely for the Order. They were as strong as anything going, but a simple runic password would dissolve the entire casting temporarily.

There was still no response from within, so she cast a glance at Hermione, who nodded a little tensely, fingering her wand nervously as she was wont to do when she knew a fight was in the offing. Then she used her wand to draw the runes Išātu and Iṣṣūru, literally fire bird, on the doorpost, the wedges and lines of cuneiform script appearing briefly in blue fire before being absorbed into the wood with no trace as the wards accepted the password.

There was a tingle in the air as the wards dropped. Hermione's booted foot was already raised and driving for the door-lock. One of the great things about magic was the ability to undo virtually any damage done to an inanimate object with a selection of relatively simple spells. If they were wrong a simple Reparo would put the lock back together, and if they weren't wrong then the surprise effect of the door being kicked in was a good distraction for any potential enemies inside. The lock splintered and gave way, allowing Hermione to duck through the doorway, moving in a half-crouch to present a smaller target, a lesson she had learned the hard way during the Second War. No hostile response appeared to be forthcoming, however, and so she stood up, cautiously and keeping her wand out and ready. Ginny, who had mirrored her movements except for going left through the door rather than right followed her lead in standing as well. The pair swept the room with their eyes and found it empty, dark and quiet.

She looked at Ginny and Ginny looked right back and they shrugged at one another slightly. At least no one was here to see their mistake, and in all honesty, Elphias probably would have understood. Knockturn Alley was one of those neighbourhoods in which 'better safe than sorry' was a truism for survival. A brilliant flash of light from the back of the shop caught the attention of both women, and they both ducked instinctively, thinking that it might be a curse coming their way. No spell seemed to be forthcoming however, and so they raised their heads cautiously to see what had transpired.

The sight that confronted them was strange, which worried both of them. The door that led to the back-room of Elphias' shop was framed by a halo of many colours which flickered, as though something was going on behind the door. It was not quite the same effect that would be produced if an intense duel were to be going on behind the door, since this nimbus of light wavered but never vanished altogether, which would happen intermittently as spells exhausted themselves if a duel were going on behind the door. Nevertheless it was close enough that it warranted examination, just in case.

As they got within feet of the door, they noticed that there was a strong draught pulling air towards the door, but for the moment it was just another odd thing to chalk up to whatever was going on behind the door. As with the front door to the shop, both women stood to either side of the door for a moment before Hermione kicked this one in as well, and the pair moved swiftly to enter the room.

Sirius' head snapped up as the door slammed open and he saw two figures illuminated by the light of the sparks of Harry's wand and the glow of the torches that lit the room. He only had time to register two things, the fact that they were wearing black uniforms and the telltale flash of silver on the right side of each figure's chest. He did not need a second look to know that the silver was the emblem of a coiled serpent; its jaws wide open as though to strike: the emblem of the Sentinel corps, Voldemort's more mundane policing force.

At that point instinct took over, he used one hand to pull downwards on Harry's shoulder, forcing him off the chair and onto the floor, where Sirius hoped he would have the sense to stay put or seek cover. His other hand was already moving forwards, a simple flick of the wrist bringing his wand out of the holster strapped to his wrist and neatly into his palm. He cast the first offensive spell that came to mind, a Reductor Curse, but was compelled to leap away as one of the Sentinels brought up a shield that reflected his curse back at him. The curse hit his chair instead, shattering it into splinters. He rolled along the floor, coming up to one knee about a yard from where he had started, a second spell already on his lips, this time a powerful Stunner. Stunners had the advantage of not bouncing off shields. Instead they simply impacted, and the shield had to absorb the full energy of the spell or else collapse.

He vaguely heard Doge shouting something, but his attention was on the battle, so he ignored it, although he dimly felt puzzled that Doge was not joining in the duel. Did the old man not realise that Harry could not fight? Perhaps he had lost his wand, Sirius could not recall whether he had been holding it when the door slammed open. It did not matter anyway, the Sentinel not maintaining the shield was sending curses his way, and he was forced to dive to avoid them. This time he got all the way to his feet, firing off another Stunner as he rose.

Harry watched from the floor as Sirius dove away and traded spells with the two people who had come crashing through the door. Doge was yelling for them to stop, but no one seemed to be paying him any heed. Harry was not sure who these new arrivals were, but Sirius seemed to think that they were a threat. Doge thought otherwise, but they certainly seemed to be going all out against Sirius, and Doge was doing nothing to help. Harry was not sure what spell Sirius was using, but the only spell he knew that was of use in a duel was certainly a non-lethal one, the Disarming Hex. If he could disarm these newcomers then they could sort all this out. If they were friends as Doge seemed to think, then it would be fine, if not, they would have the upper hand with the newcomers disarmed.

He got to his feet and raised his new wand.

"_Expelliarmus_!" he cried, putting all his effort into the spell since he figured he would probably be rusty from so many years without practice, a brilliant jet of red light leaving his wand and streaking towards the newcomers. He could have no way of knowing that he had overpowered the spell by an incredible amount, and that the jet of light was virtually pure magical force rather than an actual spell.

Hermione, on the other hand, perceived exactly the nature of the light streaking towards her and Ginny, and she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the bolt of pure power would be more than enough to destroy Ginny's shield, already weakened from the other person's spells impacting on it. She raised her own shield, and watched in fascination as the bolt of light hit it. Her shield collapsed, but it was enough to remove most of the force from the spell, what reached Ginny and herself was only enough to make a few of their hairs stand on end. She was amazed that anyone would pour so much power into a simple Disarming Hex. Who was this person?

She raised another shield as she tried to get a better look at this novice dueller, but could not quite make any features out on his face. Then suddenly he was illuminated by a spell from Ginny, a simple Knockback Jinx. The white light passed within inches of his face, and Hermione gasped in shocked surprise. She stood transfixed by the sight of messy black hair and vivid green eyes, both starkly illuminated by the white spell. The messy black hair was not all that remarkable; she had seen it on many other people in the last six years. Those eyes, however, were one of a kind, and very familiar to her because, even though she had not seen them in person in nearly six years now, they had nevertheless stared at her out of countless Wanted posters up and down the country for the last two years now. Her eyes flicked up slightly, to the man's forehead, searching for the other great identifying mark, but she was met by a wall of black fringe that prevented her from confirming her suspicions.

Ginny, however, heard her gasp, and on instinct looked over to see what had so surprised her best friend and partner. By this time, however the light of the spell had faded and the man's face was in shadow, so all she could tell was that Hermione had frozen up when facing this second man. The second's distraction cost her, however, and the man she had been duelling managed to get off a Stunner that made it most of the way through her shield, causing her to become groggy. A jet of red light from the second man caused her wand to go flying, and after that things went dark as a second Stunner put her out like a light.

Hermione registered Ginny's fall and turned her wand towards the man casting the Stunners, but her wand too fell victim to a Disarming Hex, and then she too was put down by a quick Stunner. Sirius moved forwards to finish the two Sentinels off while they were still down. It was not that he felt malice towards them, they were soldiers of a sort, but he could not risk Obliviation for them, not when they had possibly seen Harry. Memory Charms could be broken, and if the Dark Lord ever got wind that Harry was back and in action then he would put everything he could into finding them. That was something they could not afford, at least not yet. So there could be no witnesses, certainly no witnesses that actively worked for Voldemort.

Doge however, had other ideas and interposed himself between Sirius and the fallen women.

"That's enough!" he exclaimed, holding out his hand to command Sirius to halt, "These two are friends of mine. You can't harm them."

"They're Sentinels, Doge," Sirius ground out, "They work for Voldemort, and they may have seen Harry. We can't afford to have any witnesses to his return to report back to Voldemort."

"Miss Granger and Miss Weasley are no more Sentinels than you or I, Black," Doge fired right back, "They're both Order members, and they work in the Corps as spies and double-agents when we need law-enforcement to look the other way. Miss Granger is a member of my cell as a matter of fact."

"Wait a moment," Harry interrupted, feeling as stunned as though he had been hit by a sledgehammer right between the eyes, there was no way that he was _that_ lucky…or maybe there was, maybe, just maybe karma was evening out a little here by giving him his friends back, "Granger and Weasley, not _Hermione_ Granger and _Ginny_ Weasley?"

"Yes, the very same," Doge replied, "Why?"

Sirius appeared to have caught on as well, because it was he who answered.

"They're both supposed to be dead," he said cautiously, "Are you certain they are who you say they are, Doge?"

"Well, yes," Doge replied, "Who said they were dead?"

"Ron Weasley," Sirius supplied, "Ginny's brother and Hermione's boyfriend. He is under the impression that they died in the Siege three years ago."

"Then he was mistaken," Doge said, "Although in fairness, they both believe him to be dead as well, I think, at least they do talk about him, but always in the past tense. They probably assumed that when they never heard of him again he must have died."

"Our cell has been forced on the run," Sirius said, "We can't operate in the open at all for fear of being picked up."

"That would explain it then."

"Can we wake them up?" Harry interrupted abruptly, somewhat impatient with the two older men talking while one of his best friends in all the world lay unconscious and possibly hurt on the floor, but also excited by the prospect of catching up with the two girls once again.

Sirius shrugged.

"Well yes, but the question is do we want to?"

"What?! What do you mean? Of course I want to!"

"Harry, just think about this rationally for a second, they're both Sentinels. Sentinels undergo Legilimency scans as a matter of course when they come back from patrols. I'm assuming both Ginny and Hermione are decent Occlumens to have fooled those scans as far as their identities and membership of the Order goes, but we can't take any risks on this one. We're going to have to Obliviate them before we leave here, and the less they've seen of you, the less we'll have to wipe."

"Hermione and Ginny would never betray me," Harry stated coldly, his voice oddly high, "They would die first."

Sirius was not perturbed by the change in Harry; it was not the first time it had happened in the last month. They had agreed that it was probably an artefact of his time in Azkaban, he knew that he himself had not escaped that place without a few side-effects, and if this was the worst of the lasting effects of that terrible place on Harry then they should all be very thankful.

"It's not that they would betray you, Harry," Sirius argued, "All it would take was for a Legilimancer to get one glimpse of your face in one of their memories and the report would be out there faster than you can believe. The price on your head is enormous, Hermione and Ginny would be tortured without mercy for any information on your whereabouts. Is that what you want for them?"

"No, I guess not," Harry said, his shoulders slumping, but then he brightened a bit as a new thought came to him, "But it won't matter."

"It won't?" Sirius asked, raising an eyebrow.

"No," Harry affirmed, "They won't be going back, they'll be coming with us."

"What?!"

"Come on, Sirius, you honestly think that if we wake these two up and tell them that Ron is alive and well they won't demand that we take them with us? Or that if we tell Ron his sister and ex-girlfriend are alive that he won't come down and see them both?"

Sirius hated to admit it, but Harry had a point. There was no way they could _not _tell Ron about this, and there was equally no way that they could expect Ron not to try and see his sister and girlfriend if he found out that they were alive. One way or another, both girls were going to be dangerously close to the knowledge that Harry was alive and free, so perhaps it might be better for all concerned if they came with them.

"Fine," Sirius sighed, "But if this blows up in our face, you are going to get one heck of an 'I told you so' out of me, understand?"

Harry just rolled his eyes as he nodded. Sometimes Sirius acted too much like a little kid, but Harry suspected that it was his way of dealing with the horrors of Azkaban, whereas his was to just pack it all up and push it away. The pair of them had grown closer in the last month by sharing their experiences from inside, but it was clear that Sirius' way of dealing with it would never work for Harry and vice versa. Sirius was just not the brooding type, and Harry was simply not as happy-go-lucky as his godfather. He watched as Sirius pointed his wand at the two women.

"_Ennervate!_"

Hermione's eyes snapped open as she was returned forcibly to full consciousness in an instant. She sat up swiftly and took stock of her situation, which from her current position did not look particularly promising as she took in the three men standing over her. Then recent events came flooding back, and she looked up searchingly at the three men. She focussed instantly on the shortest of the three, Harry had always been on the petite side for their age. From her current angle, however, all three faces were frustratingly shadowed.

Because of her reasoning, she was rather surprised when it was the middle figure, both in position and in height, who knelt down to meet her eyes with his own green ones. He evidently saw her eyes flick to his forehead again, because a slender hand came up to lift the black fringe and reveal the famous lightning-bolt scar that defined Harry Potter for the majority of the Wizarding World.

"Hello again, Hermione," he said in a quiet voice that seemed rather choked up.

Purest joy was her first reaction at seeing her onetime best friend alive and well again, and she wasted no time in flinging her arms around his neck and pulling him to her, unheeding of the tears that were spilling down her cheeks.

"Oh, Harry! I can't tell you how happy I am to see you again!"

As a general rule, Harry did not like being touched. It was a side-effect of his upbringing; his aunt and uncle had never hugged or comforted him. In his early life, touching had usually meant getting beaten up by Dudley and his gang, sometimes by his uncle when he did prominent displays of accidental magic. His vicious beating at the hands of the Finch-Fletchleys combined with the solitary nature of Azkaban had done nothing to change this fact. It was therefore a mark of how glad he was to see Hermione that he did not attempt to squirm out of her embrace, but rather relaxed into it and held her just as tightly.

"I'm glad to see you again too, 'Mione," he assured her quietly into her ear.

He felt a second pair of arms slide around his chest, and turned his head to see a head of very dark crimson hair before a pair of bright brown eyes met his.

"Welcome back, Harry," Ginny said softly.

"It's good to see you again as well, Ginny," he said to her, unwrapping an arm from around Hermione and encircling Ginny's shoulders with it. Doge and Sirius both backed off and left the three of them to it, sensing that their friends and godson respectively needed this.

For a long minute and a half, none of the three said anything. Hermione was simply lost in the happiness of being close to Harry again, Ginny was virtually enraptured by the fact that she was holding and being held close by her girlhood hero and crush and Harry was still marvelling at the fact that, for once, Fate seemed to be doing him a favour. Eventually, however, cramps set in, and all three had to move.

Harry was first to get up, compelling both girls to release their holds on him, and then he offered each of them a hand up in turn. For a moment they simply stood there in silence, then quite suddenly Hermione let out a small laugh.

"You know, I thought so much about what I would say when I saw you again, Harry. Now I can't think of any of the things I thought of. There's so much I want to tell you, I don't know where to begin."

Harry could not help laughing himself at this.

"Well I can't really say that I have a lot to tell you," he replied, his gut twisting with bitterness slightly as he was forcibly reminded of just why that was, but he pushed that away, with his friends here literally within arms reach this was not the time for angst, "But I do think I know what you mean. I never exactly figured on seeing you again, either of you, so I'm not entirely sure what to do either."

"I think you'll have more to tell us than you think," Hermione admonished, "Like how you got out of Azkaban, and when. And what you've been doing since then, and how it is that you came to be here in Elphias' shop."

Harry had to smile, Hermione had evidently not changed a bit when it came to her incessant need to know everything.

"Perhaps you're right," he allowed, "But not here. There's somewhere we need to go, someone who you both need to see."

"Who?"

He had clearly piqued both girls' interests as he was now the subject of two piercing brown stares, but he shook his head to indicate that he was not going to reveal his secret just yet.

"And you're not going to tell us anything else until we go?" Hermione demanded, her hands going to her hips as she became frustrated.

Harry could not help but smile at the familiar gesture, even in his hazy memories the image of Hermione stood with her hands on her hips as she upbraided himself and Ron for something was a very clear one.

"Trust me, 'Mione, when you see who we're going to meet, you'll probably be scolding me for making you wait as long as I did."

"Then I say we go now," Ginny cut in, recognising the warning signs of a serious rant in her friend, "Unless you're not finished here?"

"No, we're done I think," Harry said, then turned to Sirius for confirmation, "Are we done, Sirius?"

"Yes," Sirius confirmed with a nod of his head, "I've handled the payment details with Doge."

He held out a small pebble to Harry, a Portkey. He took it and instructed the two women to take it as well. Sirius would follow on after he had Obliviated Harry's identity from Doge. Sirius had insisted that they could not risk anything in this, and Doge had agreed in advance, and probably even more so after he learned exactly who he was crafting for. The now-familiar jerk behind his navel tugged Harry into the whirl of colours that was the space through which Portkeys travelled to reach their destinations, whisking them back to Primrose Valley and the Shell Cottage.

* * *

So, there you have it. Please leave me a review to let me know what you thought!


	5. Late Night Conversations

For disclaimers, warnings and pairing notifications, see chapter1.

Author Note: Well here we are, at chapter 5 of this rewrite. In this chapter, the main criticisms I hope to have addressed had to do with Harry's nightmares. BJH stated that I had not provided enough 'life' to the idea, and that I should make more of an effort to demonstrate the effects of the nightmares rather than simply report them. I didn't want to include a dream sequence, because the stuff of Voldemort's rampages might be a little brutal, even for an M rated fic, so instead I opted to let Harry talk about his nightmares a bit more. Anyway, you guys are the ultimate judges of whether it's effective or not, so please let me know what you think...

* * *

Ron Weasley looked up from one of the books he was studying with Remus as a keening chime sounded throughout Shell Cottage. The sound was an alarm that warned that the Portkey wards around the house had been penetrated. The two men left their work as it was and made their way from the library to the living room, the designated arrival point for all Portkeys incoming to the house, a designation that was enforced by a fairly clever ward that funnelled any incoming Portkey to the specified location. As the Portkey began to materialise, bringing its passengers with it, Ron was somewhat confused to see the outlines of three people. Two years of war and two more on the run had taught him caution, and so he had his wand at the ready.

He found himself unable to use it, however, when the three figures finally materialised. He could only gape in shock as he gazed at the faces of two people he had never thought to see again. Hermione and Ginny appeared equally gobsmacked, their mouths hanging open and their eyes wide with surprise.

It should not really have surprised him that Hermione was the first one to speak. She had always been the first one to be able to articulate her feelings in any given situation. It was why _she_ had ended up asking _him_ out back in their fourth year, while he was still screwing up his courage to tell her he fancied her.

"R-Ron?" she asked somewhat shakily, to which he could only nod jerkily.

"Oh Ron!"

Then she had thrown herself on him in the tightest, fiercest hug he had ever received from her, and he found himself returning the embrace just as fervently, running his hands up and down her back to assure himself of the reality of her presence.

Harry, Sirius and Remus all withdrew discreetly from the room as Ginny joined the hug with her brother, leaving the three in peace to reconnect with one another. Harry headed to the library with Sirius in tow to supervise him, intent on looking for something with which to try out his new wand, while Remus headed off to his room.

* * *

Some hours later Harry was still in the library, although he had ceased to practice what he was reading since Sirius had left him alone. He was there mainly to avoid sleep and the nightmares that still plagued him too often on the nights when he could not avail himself of Dreamless Sleep potion. Hermione, however, had no such reason for avoiding sleep, so he was more than a little surprised when the door opened to reveal her slender form framed in the doorway. She stepped inside and let the door swing shut once more as she surveyed him at the large reading table in the centre of the room with a stack of books beside him.

"Hermione, hi," he said, "Uuuh, what brings you in here?"

"I might ask the same of you, Harry," she replied, walking over to stand next to the reading table as she did so "After all it's quite late."

He held up the Magical Theory book he was reading at the moment for her inspection.

"Catching up on what I missed in school," he told her.

"You can do that during the day," Hermione countered, pulling a chair around the table and sitting in it so that she was eye to eye with him, "Why are you here _now_?"

Harry tried to turn away. This was not something he wanted to talk about, his nightmares should not be inflicted on anyone, especially not his best friend. He could not imagine where his subconscious psyche had dredged up the horrible acts he found himself performing in his dreams on a nightly basis when not drugged up to the eyeballs with Dreamless Sleep potions. The tortures, the killing, the destruction, where had it all come from? He had never performed such acts in his life, of that he was sure, he had never even dreamed some of them were possible until they had started cropping up in his nightly horror shows. But the fact that he could conceive of such things frightened him, it frightened him deeply, because if he could conceive of them, then what was to say that he might not do them? His train of self-questioning thought was interrupted, however, when a warm, slender hand cupped his cheek and gently turned his head back, until his brilliant green eyes were once again meeting her woody brown ones.

"Please tell me, Harry, I can help," she implored quietly, "Whatever it is, you don't have to go through it alone, I can be there for you this time. I'm not Petrified in the Hospital Wing this time around, I'm here, and I want to help you in any way I can."

He studied her eyes as they bored into his own, fears and questions skittering across his brain at the speed of thought. Should he tell her? Would it change things between them to know that he was capable of dreaming up such horrors? No, it probably wouldn't, he decided, Hermione would probably chalk it up to his time in prison, as everyone seemed to be doing with several new traits about himself that he was deeply uncomfortable with. He wished he could do the same, certainly he had heard Death Eaters howling threats that he had not realised were anatomically possible at their imagined tormentors or victims, but that did not, _could_ _not_, explain how he could possibly conjure up such vivid and realistic depictions of these acts.

"I don't think you can help with this one, 'Mione," he sighed, deciding to be honest with her, it was the least he could do after all she had tried to do for him over the years of his imprisonment, "I have nightmares, nightmares like you wouldn't believe."

He laughed bitterly.

"Imagine that, after everything I've been through, everything I've faced, I'm afraid of my own bloody dreams! How ironic is that?"

"Oh Harry," Hermione sighed, "It's not ironic at all, it's to be expected really, precisely because of everything you've seen and done."

"You don't understand, 'Mione," he said, shaking his head, "These nightmares, they have nothing to do with anything I've done or been through. They're all imagination, _my_ imagination, and that's what scares me."

"Why?" she pressed, "What do you dream?"

There was a long pause as he debated once again whether he really wanted to say this out loud. Doing so would make it much more real, and who knew how Hermione would react? In the end he came back to the conclusion that he owed her honesty.

"I kill people," he told her flatly, "I torture them, I kill them. I don't even think some of what I do in my dreams is actually possible to do to a human body. The worst part is, I enjoy it, in the dream, I feel powerful, so powerful 'Mione, like I could do anything I wanted to. And that's what scares me most of all, because I'm going to become a killer. You know the Prophecy, Ron told me about it, I have to become a killer, it's my destiny. And once I've killed Voldemort, what's to stop me from getting a taste for it, what says I won't start trying to realise some of those dreams?"

He looked at her with no small amount of fear, since he had laid himself rather bare just then, said a little more than he had intended to say. It had just spilled out once he got going. He watched those big, brown eyes, deathly afraid that at any moment he would see them fill with fear and loathing as she confirmed for him what he himself already feared: that he was turning Dark. As the silence lengthened between them, his fear mounted, and he braced himself as best he could for the angry fearful condemnation that he felt sure was about to come.

"The fact that you fear it happening," Hermione said calmly, and for a moment he could not connect her statement to his own, but she continued, "That's what will keep you from doing anything that you may have dreamed about. Harry listen to me, you are not evil, no matter what they said at your trial, no matter what lies they put into your head after that, _you are not evil_. The Harry Potter I knew was a kind and selfless person. He was a hero, I know you hate that moniker, but you _are_. You risked your life for a girl you hardly knew at all, twice in fact if you count the troll as well. You've only ever done what was necessary to help others. I'll probably get bored of reading books long before you would ever find pleasure in harming someone else."

That last sentence made him smile a bit, which was probably precisely her intention, but he had not missed a critical point of her little speech.

"The Harry Potter you knew had never set foot in Azkaban," he said darkly, "You have no idea, Hermione, how awful that place is, and I pray that you never find out. What if it's changed me? I've lost so much to that place, memories, time, friends. What if it took other things too? What if it took away the good in me?"

"Harry," she started, speaking very slowly, as she probably would to a young child, which she supposed was actually the case in some ways. Looking at Harry and seeing him strong and healthy, and looking eighteen, it was easy to forget that in some ways he had probably not matured much beyond the age of twelve.

"That's just not possible. You can't take away someone's ability to be good, it just doesn't work that way. You always have the power to be good, that's what makes evil people so bad, there's always the potential for them to turn back from the path they've chosen, but they never do, they consistently choose to step further into the darkness.

"Listen, Harry, you're right, I don't think I can really help you with this, or at least I'm not the best person for it anyway. Talk with Ginny about this, okay? After the Chamber she felt much the same way that you seem to, that the diary had changed her, and that it would only be a matter of time before she started attacking people again. I think she can probably understand what you're feeling from these nightmares better than anyone else."

Harry balked slightly at that, after all he did not know Ginny very well, the fact that he had saved her life notwithstanding, and this was rather personal. He filed the recommendation away, but he thought that he would probably try and deal with it on his own before he burdened her with it. After all the letters he had read from her while she had been recovering, he surmised that she probably did not need to be reminded of those days, and so he would not if he could help it.

"I'll think about it," he hedged, to which Hermione nodded.

"So, my turn," Harry continued, "Why are you up here?"

"Actually I came to see where you were," she replied, "You ran off so quickly when we got back, we didn't get a chance to catch up on much."

"I thought you would want to spend the time with Ron," Harry said seriously, looking her in the eye unflinchingly, "You should go back to him you know. Even I can see that you guys have something special, 'Mione, and I spent puberty in prison."

"I'm glad we have your seal of approval," Hermione said sincerely, "At the start, when we first got together, we wondered how you would have felt if you'd been there…"

"I hope I would have been happy for you. I know that I am now."

"Thanks."

Silence stretched out between them, as neither was entirely sure what to say next. Both had so much that they wanted to talk about that neither knew where to start. Eventually it was Hermione who took the plunge.

"So how are you getting on with studying?"

It was a simple, easy topic, unlike many others that she could have touched on, so Harry was immensely thankful for that.

"It's a bit mixed," Harry said, "Ron and Remus are still compiling a list of all the things they think I should get a grounding in. In the meantime they have me reading all these theory books, but I'm not sure how much good it's done. Earlier, when Sirius was here, I cracked open _Standard Book of Spells Grade 1_ again, but hardly any of them work for me anymore."

"Now _that_," Hermione said, "is something I definitely _can_ help you with."

Harry shot her a look that was a mixture of amusement, affection and wistfulness, because he was sure that the few memories that he _could_ recall concerning Hermione's love of schoolwork and the times she had spent ages tutoring both Ron and him were only a fraction of what he _should_ have been able to recall.

"Hermione can help me with learning magic," he told the ceiling playfully, "What a surprise."

She could not help but smile at that.

"Stop it," she said, swatting him lightly on the shoulder, "I'll tell you what, we can start with this list of Ron's and Remus' in the morning and we'll draw up your training schedule from that. I have a few ideas about things you might want to consider learning that they might not have included."

She started to get up and tried to lift Harry up along with her, but he took hold of her shoulder and sat them both back down again.

"Can we start now? It's not that late yet," he implored her.

"You really should sleep, Harry, it's not good for you to stay up all night, and I'd bet anything that this isn't the first time you've done it either."

"I don't plan to stay up _all_ night, just another hour or so. Please, 'Mione?" he made full and unashamed use of puppy dog eyes on her.

She studied his expression. She wasn't entirely sure if she believed him when he said he would only be staying up for another couple of hours. She strongly suspected that a couple of hours might mean all night really.

"You're going to stay here even without me, aren't you?"

Harry shrugged, but the answer was obvious.

"Harry, if it's that bad, why don't you take Dreamless Sleep potion?"

"I do," he admitted, "But you can't take that stuff more than four nights a week without risking becoming addicted. So I take it Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays."

"And you just stay awake the other nights?" Hermione asked incredulously, "Harry you know that's not good for you. The whole point of the restriction is that you're supposed to get _natural_ sleep in the intervening nights."

"I _do_," Harry said, a little defensively, "I just go to bed later when I can't take it. I'm less likely to dream if I'm really tired."

"Fine," Hermione sighed, "I guess we could make a start for the next hour or so before I head to bed. But you _will_ go to bed at the same time I do, okay? Learning magic requires a clear head, Harry, if you're not with it, nasty accidents can happen."

"Brilliant, you're the best, 'Mione!"

"Where's this list then?"

Harry rooted around in the things on the desk for a bit before producing the requisite sheet of parchment. Hermione, however, could not make heads or tails of what was written there. It was all disjointed, with random phrases and notes jotted down one after another. She could see why Harry thought it was a list, it certainly appeared to be one at first glance. But it appeared to be a list of odds and ends, nothing meaningful really.

"Harry, this isn't a list, this is just a bunch of notes, I have no idea what most of it means."

"Oh," Harry said, looking embarrassed, "Well I didn't either, but I thought that was just because I don't know much about magic yet. I mean I recognised a couple of the subject headings as stuff we studied at school, and figured the rest was more of the same."

"Never mind, we'll just start our own list," she said, pulling a fresh sheet of parchment towards her, and picking up a quill from the table. It was of the Self-Inking variety, so that there would be no need for the rather large risk of an open inkpot around stacks of books.

"Well I guess Defence Against the Dark Arts is a no-brainer to start with," Harry said.

"Of course," Hermione nodded, "but don't discount the other base subjects, Charms and Transfiguration, when you're in the middle of a duel. Plenty of that sort of spell-work can be useful or even deadly in a battle situation as well."

"Okay."

Harry seemed a bit sceptical, so Hermione endeavoured to explain.

"Harry, you know that there's a curse known as the Killing Curse, right?" at his nod she continued, "Well the Killing Curse can't be blocked by magical shields of any sort, but it dissipates against physical objects just fine, so if you have a Killing Curse headed for you, you could easily use a Summoning Charm to move an object into its path, or use Transfiguration to conjure a wall to halt the curse, see? You could transfigure solid ground into ice to put your enemy off balance, you could levitate yourself to dodge a curse, the list goes on and on. Just because a spell isn't directly connected to offence or defence doesn't mean you can't _use_ it that way."

Harry nodded to signify his understanding.

"Well I guess that's the extent of my knowledge," he said, "Except I suppose I'll have to go for Potions too, I've already been introduced to the power of the brew, as it were."

He was trying for a bit of humour, but it obviously didn't pass muster, as Hermione just gave him an odd look. Perhaps he needed to work on his sense of humour a bit more.

"Yes," she confirmed, "Potions is important, especially poisons and antidotes, but also truth serums would be useful if we want accurate information."

"What else then?" Harry asked, hating that he didn't even know what other subject areas there _were_, let alone what ones he could or should look at. Hermione tapped her lower lip with a finger as she considered it. Then she began adding more items to the list, describing them as she went.

"Well Runes are essential if you ever want to cast wards with anything like adequate staying power, and they can also be created and charged beforehand, like carrying around a bunch of pre-cast spells in your pocket to pull out and surprise an enemy. Occlumency will be necessary in order to protect you from mental attacks and it's counterpart, Legilimency would make another useful weapon in your arsenal if you can become competent with it. You should get at least the basics of Healing Magic, just in case you get stuck on your own and hurt.

"I also think perhaps a good grounding in magical creatures, especially the Dark ones so that you know how to kill them. Voldemort has the services of a number of vampire clans and werewolf packs. Then too, knowing which creatures will be your natural allies would be useful as well in case you ever get stuck out on your own, so maybe studying Light creatures as well would help, but I wouldn't bother too much with the creatures that aren't affiliated one way or the other unless we know Voldemort uses them. Everything else I can think of is conditional on your having some inborn talent in it, but I think we should try for an Elemental Mastery for you, and Animagus training as well if possible."

Harry's head was spinning from all the different subject areas she had just reeled off. Some of them he knew of, in the vaguest possible sense. Healing Magic sounded fairly self-explanatory, as did Elemental Mastery, and he knew what an Animagus was from Sirius, who was one himself. He had also read the course descriptions for Ancient Runes when selecting his electives back in Hogwarts, and it sounded like she wanted him to take Care of Magical Creatures too. But some he had never even heard of like Occlumency or Legilimency.

"Is that all?" he asked faintly, still trying to process some of the esoteric-sounding names she had just reeled off. Hermione looked at him with a furrowed brow, misinterpreting his question.

"Well I wasn't sure about mentioning it, Harry, especially now that you've told me about your nightmares, but how do you feel about the Dark Arts?"

Harry gaped at her unable to formulate a coherent response to that suggestion.

"_Hermione!_" he hissed, to which she instantly put up both her hands in surrender.

"I didn't mean the really Dark stuff, Harry, not the Unforgivables or anything like that," she said hastily, "but there are some fringe arts that you might find useful, like Necromancy, or Blood Magic. They've both been questionable for centuries according to society, but there's no denying that they can do powerful things, and you're going to need power to go up against the Dark Lord."

Harry considered rejecting both, until he realised that his only justification for doing so was that they were Dark arts, and he did not even know what that meant, much less what either art entailed. He remembered his first meeting with Voldemort in Hogwarts. 'There is only power,' the Dark Lord had said, 'and those too weak to seek it.' Perhaps Hermione might be able to shed some light on the whole idea before he made a decision.

"What is a Dark Art anyway, 'Mione? Why do we call them that?"

Hermione smiled at the question, as though pleased that he had asked that, which was the truth to a certain degree. She did not necessarily agree with the very close-minded view of the wizarding world as it had been before Voldemort about what should and should not be done with magic.

"Well, Harry, officially speaking, before the rise of Voldemort to power a Dark Art was any branch of magic on the official list at the Ministry of Magic. They outlawed entire branches of magic under the pretext that they were dangerous to practice in modern society. The official line is that the Dark Arts are addictive, and dangerous because of that. Also they're said to bring out the worst in people, magnifying traits like ambition while suppressing things like your conscience and sense of morals.

"Personally, I think, and lots of people disagree with me, that they outlawed a lot of that stuff because they were afraid of the kind of people who could practice those kinds of magic rather than the actual branches or magic themselves. Most of the outlawed arts require a lot of skill and raw power to practice to any degree, and I think the Ministry wanted to try and keep tabs or control on people with that kind of talent so that they couldn't threaten the Ministry itself. I'm not saying that the original Dark Arts were like that, some of the branches on that list are pretty nasty pieces of work, whoever conceived of them should have been drowned at birth or something, and they might well be right about the side-effects, if Voldemort is any indication. He certainly doesn't seem to have much in the way of a conscience or morals at all, and I doubt he was that bad when he went to school wherever he did.

"But a lot of what they put on the list is just unusual or powerful, like Blood Magic. Blood Magic was outlawed on the basis that it requires a certain sacrifice from the caster in order to power the spells, as the name implies, but a lot of the Blood spells can be used for great good. For example I read about one Blood ritual that can be used to re-grow a severed limb on a person, but like all Dark Arts spells it was taken off the list of approved Healers' spells, and so people like Mad-Eye Moody run around with wooden legs and missing fingers when they don't need to."

Harry took in this extensive speech, thankful that Hermione had explained in terms even he could understand, and the example had helped no end. So Dark Arts was just a label, or at least it could be, and a stigma that prevented them from becoming truly powerful. Once again he raged internally at Fudge and all those of his ilk, who were undoubtedly responsible for such paranoia within the Ministry. The problem was, if Hermione was right, and he had no reason to think she might not be, then how were they going to separate the real deal from the things that the Ministry were afraid of? He voiced his worry to Hermione, causing her to sigh.

"I don't know, exactly, Harry, the only sure way would be to try, but if the truly Dark Arts are that addictive then you could be instantly lost to them. I guess the only way we can really have even a close idea is to watch ourselves and what we delve into very carefully."

"You say Blood Magic and Necromancy are both borderline?"

She nodded.

"Add them for now then, I guess, but we are going to be very careful and look long and hard at each and every spell we try _before_ we try it."

Again she nodded and her quill scratched the two frowned-upon branches of magic onto the bottom of their growing list.

"Anything else?" he asked, the list already seemed dauntingly long, but he wanted to have everything he could get.

"Not really, there aren't any other Dark Arts that I would trust at the moment without a lot more research into them. I don't think Arithmancy will really help you much, Arithmantic calculations take too long to be much use in a battle situation. Divination is just a load of tripe for anyone who isn't a True Seer, and True Seers don't really need to be taught how to master their gifts. There are a few other branches that might become viable when we've determined what gifts you might possess." A new thought occurred to her, "Oh! Fencing might be good, just as a backup if you lose your wand."

"Fencing?" Harry failed to see how the ability to put up flimsy wooden barriers by hand would assist him if he lost his wand, "How will that help?"

Hermione looked at him as if he were an idiot for a moment before she realised that Harry could not possibly have any idea what fencing actually was. He must have taken her literally.

"Sorry," she said sheepishly, "Fencing is the art of fighting with a sword."

Harry face lit with comprehension.

"Sweet!" he said, sounding for all the world like a little boy told he could have free reign in the sweet shop. Hermione had to laugh: boys! They had a good chuckle together for a few moments, revelling in the fact that they could once again have such moments. Then Harry straightened his face and it was time to get back to business.

"Alright so this is our subject list, I'm guessing the next step is to go searching for books?"

"Exactly, I'm glad you learned something in two years of school."

"Okay I'll show you where the index volumes are, and then we can go looking."

Harry led her into the shelves behind the table and showed her the index volumes that stood at the front of each individual row of shelves. The index volumes were hugely useful tools in any wizarding library. Opening one and stating aloud a subject would bring up a list of titles pertaining to that subject on the shelf for which the book was the index. He would then collect the books that came up and give each one a flick-through to determine whether or not it was useful. He was not interested in the history of the discipline. He did not care who the great names in Transfiguration or Potions were, nor who actually conceived and invented the spells, he merely wanted to learn them and the theories that powered them. It was actually surprising how many books were devoted to nothing more than lists of wizards who had been great in the various disciplines and what they had achieved. Nevertheless Harry persevered. He was not surprised to find that this library contained nothing on Necromancy or Blood Magic. Hopefully they would be able to locate some books on both from elsewhere.

They stacked the books they found by discipline, with piles for each individual subject area on the list. When they had a respectable number, a feat that only took them five minutes thanks to the highly useful index volumes, Hermione, being the faster read of them, began to go through contents pages and indexes looking for relevant chapters and pages to copy onto sheets of parchment using a highly useful duplicating spell Madam Pince had taught her back in the third year when she complained to the librarian about how few books she was allowed to take out of the library. In the meantime, Harry combed the rest of the shelves.

It was about forty five minutes later when Harry came back with yet another tottering pile of books in his arms to find Hermione slumped forwards over whatever book she had been reading, snoring softly. Obviously tiredness and the events of the night had caught up with her. He smiled as more memories from Hogwarts surfaced of her in exactly the same pose in the Gryffindor Common Room. Deciding to take pity on her, after all, it was his fault she was in here in the first place, he set down the stack of books he had been carrying on the floor beside the table.

He very gently picked her up, eliciting a small contented murmur in which the words 'mother' and 'sleep' were just about discernable, and carried her down the hallway towards the bedrooms. He was about to deposit her in the remaining spare room in the house when another idea came to him, one that had his mouth curling upwards in a mischievous smile. Backtracking, he nudged open the door to Ron's room with one foot. Entering, he saw that Ron was currently lying on his side, leaving a nice expanse of empty bed that he currently had his back to. It could not have been any more perfect if Harry had planned it. Letting Hermione's legs gently down and supporting her with an arm under her armpits, he pealed back the covers with his other hand. Then he laid Hermione out in the bed next to Ron, pulled the cover up to her chin and snuck out very quietly to head for his own bed. He had, after all, made a promise to Hermione, and he would keep his word.

* * *

Please leave a review and tell me what you thought!


	6. Homecoming

For disclaimers, warnings and pairing notifications, see Chapter 1.

Author Note: This chapter is probably the least changed apart from the chapter 8, which I don't intend to alter at all. I only changed a bit of the scene between Justin and Hannah to reflect the changes in the relationship, or rather lack thereof, between Harry and Justin. I decided not to change the pairings so that Neville could end up with his canon partner, because no one seems to mind all that much, and I think that Justin and Hannah make a better pair as I've presented them than Neville and Hannah would. As always, please let me know what you thought. I haven't had a great deal of feedback about the rewritten chapters, but I'm taking the increased number of alerts and favourites as a good sign that it may be getting better.

* * *

Ron Weasley woke up to a most unusual sensation. He was laying on his side, which was unusual in itself, since he normally wound up supine in bed. But more interesting, and more than slightly alarming, was the warm and heavy object that seemed to be leaning against his back. He attempted to turn over, and discovered he could not, something was holding him in place. Furthermore that something, as he could now feel since he was more awake was equally warm and felt as though it was encircling him roughly around his waist. He made more of an effort to turn over, and was confronted by a head of brown hair that was moving lazily and murmuring sleepily, probably in response to his movements. _Hermione, _his brain told him, at least the rational part that was not screaming quite incoherently to run. How in the world had Hermione ended up in his bed?

Not that he minded particularly, it was not the first time they had slept together, and he was thankful that he would now have the opportunity to rekindle their relationship and then take it further, but he had been expecting to have to wait a few days, to give her time to process all these new developments. Heck, _he_ needed to process things. Yesterday he was mourning his sister and his girlfriend, wondering if he would ever find someone else as special as Hermione to share life with and knowing that he could never replace the influence his only sister had had on his life. Today he was waking up with the former and just down the hall from the latter.

At that point, the still half-asleep woman in his bed evidently decided that she was unhappy with their new position, and attempted to rectify it by pulling him closer. At that point rationality ceased to be in the driving seat of his brain, and his instinct took over. He carefully rolled back until he was on his back, and moved Hermione closer until her head was resting on his shoulder. His arm slid under her neck and began to run lightly over her hair; now partly escaping from the bun she had been wearing the previous evening. He had always loved her hair, even after she had changed it from the adorably bushy pile to the sleek and straight style that it now carried.

She mewled contentedly at the attentions to her hair, and her arm around his waist squeezed gently. He hoped that she would not be too angry with him when she woke all the way up, doing this brought back too many good memories for him to really want to stop, but he was also cognisant of the fact that Ginny had taught her the Bat-Bogey Hex and she had improved it a hundred-fold, and that he might well be her next target for doing something like this. At the moment he definitely thought it was worth it.

Movement caught his eye, causing him to reach for the wand on the bedside table, but he relaxed when the door swung all the way open to reveal Harry carrying a breakfast tray laden with toast and scrambled eggs, presumably cooked by Harry's own hand, and wearing a wide smile at the sight of the pair in bed in front of him. Not saying a word, he walked around the bed and left the tray on the bedside table, picking a small slip of parchment, unfolding it and holding it out towards Ron. Ron placed his wand on the tray and took the parchment from Harry, scanning it.

Hex me later if you really want, but you shouldn't waste any time with her. Pretend you made breakfast for her. Even I know enough about women to know she'll like that. This note will self-destruct in five seconds (provided you burn it for me).

Ron looked up at his grinning friend. Half of him wanted to curse the prat into a gooey mess on the floor, surmising that he was behind Hermione being in his bed, but the other half was grateful to his best friend for his well-meaning gesture. Harry, after all, had no clue about how to handle girls other than the stories he, Remus and Sirius had told him in the course of the last month, so he guessed that his friend had done the best he could with what he had. Ron decided to take the best of what Harry had offered him, and so smiled and nodded his thanks. Harry grinned again before retreating quickly from the room, shutting the door noiselessly behind him.

A few moments later, Hermione stirred in earnest, probably in response to the scent of scrambled eggs that was now wafting across the room. Ron elected not to destroy the note, as Harry had suggested. Hermione knew him well enough to know that he was a lousy cook, so there was no way he could get away with claiming he made breakfast. Plus if she was mad he could show her the note and maybe she would go after Harry instead of himself. He simply replaced it on the tray, and then looked down at his once and hopefully future girlfriend. Her eyes blinked open, slightly unfocussed, but so big and dreamy that he could lose himself in them anytime. Her expression became rather puzzled as she blinked up at him, as if trying to work out who exactly he was.

"Ron?" her voice was slightly blurred by sleep.

"Yes, 'Mione?"

"'S this a dream?"

"No," he assured her, his grin threatening to split his face in half. Her face, however was now a picture of shock, and she sat bolt upright in bed.

"HARRY JAMES POTTER! I am going to kill you for this!"

"I suggest you eat breakfast first," Ron said conversationally, knowing that the best thing was to head Hermione off before she could get too worked up. After all Harry probably thought he was doing them both a favour, and in a way he was right. "Harry made it for us."

She turned towards him so fast he wondered if she might have a crick in her neck later.

"You're not mad?" the whispered question sounded almost…fearful. Why would she be afraid? He could do nothing but shrug.

"I woke up to find the girl of my dreams in my bed. Why would I be mad? Over the moon maybe…"

"I just thought," she bit her lip nervously, "I thought you might want time to adjust, to see if you feel the same before we try to restart anything."

Ron's heart sank like a stone. Did that mean she did not love him any more?

"Do you…" he paused, and could not help but swallow nervously, "Does that mean you want to wait, 'Mione?"

A long pause followed his question, and he was just about to resign himself to giving up and leading an existence of solitude in the knowledge that the woman of his dreams had fallen out of love with him – well that was a trifle melodramatic, but he felt he was entitled to some melodrama if he was going to lose Hermione – when her eyes met his once again. He could see the nervousness, the hope that lay there, and as quickly as his heart had sunk it was now leaping up into his throat as she shook her head slowly. He had to clear his throat twice before he could make anything resembling a coherent sound.

"Neither do I," he told her.

"Oh, Ron!" she practically leapt on him, wrapping her arms around his neck so tightly that he thought he might have breathing difficulties, although breathing did not seem all that crucial just at the minute. By the time they remembered breakfast through their heated kisses, it was rather cold. Thank goodness for magic, and warming charms.

* * *

Sometime later, when Ron and Hermione finally surfaced, holding hands to Harry's secret delight, the entire household gathered in the living room of the house to decide upon their next course of action. It was quickly determined that the two girls would not be returning to their jobs, apparently Legilimency probes were employed on all Sentinels out on duty, and although both girls were adept at fooling such probes with their skills in Occlumency, Harry's return was simply too big to trust to even the smallest risk at the moment.

After this ideas and plans bounced back and forth across the group. It was generally agreed by all that they could not remain at the Shell Cottage. The place was simply not equipped for their needs. For one thing it did not have enough bedrooms, and for another, it did not have the training facilities or the library resources that would be needed to adequately school Harry in everything he needed to know about. Remus and Sirius had squirmed a little at the revelation that Harry planned to study branches of magic that were not strictly on the Light Side, but they agreed with much of Hermione's reasoning as she explained it, and were willing to go along with it, provided that they themselves had oversight over what was studied. It was a restriction they could easily agree to, since they were planning on doing a lot of scrutinising themselves, of what they had now dubbed the 'Grey Arts' before delving even shallowly into them.

Now they were considering where to relocate to, and since Harry had no idea where anything or anyone was, he kept silent and simply observed the lively discussion. It was a cathartic sight for him, the Golden Trio plus friends in action once again, and for the first time since regaining his sanity, Harry felt almost happy with the way things were turning out. His attention returned to the discussion when he thought someone mentioned his name, and in a way he was right, but not entirely.

"What about Potter Mansion?" Sirius was saying, "It's about as secure as we're going to get, ever. Only someone of Potter blood can find it and bring others to it for their first visit."

"If that's so, then how come Harry had to live with his Aunt and Uncle?" Ron demanded, "That can't be true."

"It is true, Ron," Sirius retorted, "but since Harry was the last Potter and under the age of majority, he couldn't give someone permission to enter the house, no one could go there. When the current Lord Potter dies, the access list is wiped clean as a safety precaution. Even I couldn't get back in, despite having been taken there many times by James."

"Oh," Ron said, contritely, "Sorry."

"Not to worry, Ron," Remus reassured, "You couldn't have known. We've never mentioned Potter Mansion precisely because without Harry it's simply impossible to get to."

"Well the security sounds wonderful, then," Hermione said, "But what about training and a library. The House of Potter is historically a very Light family, will we be able to find books on things like Blood Magic and Necromancy there?"

"No," Sirius said, "The Potters expunged their house of material like that long ago, but that's where I come in. Never thought hailing from a Dark family would be useful, but the Black Manor library is brimming with texts on the Dark Arts. Heck even the townhouse at Grimmauld Place probably has more about the Dark Arts than any of us could read in a lifetime. It'll have to be a very quick job, in and out, because my cousins Narcissa and Bellatrix can enter those houses too, but we should be able to sneak off with some books with a bit of time and careful planning. In the meantime we can start with the books that are at Potter Mansion. Their library easily rivals the one at Hogwarts."

"Sounds like a plan," Harry said, "There's just one problem. I have no idea where Potter Mansion is either. And there's no one who can tell me where it is."

"I know where it is," Sirius said, "I never said I didn't, just that I can't enter. I can get us to the general vicinity, then you have to take over, Harry."

"And do what? You know I can't do any magic."

"You won't have to, just lead us in. Hell, we can walk in all holding hands and that would probably work. Look a bit stupid, but if all else fails…"

Harry grinned at the mental image of them all holding hands and skipping up a long drive to a manor house like a bunch of kids.

"Alright then," he said, "We've got some packing to do."

He was going home…

* * *

Halfway across the country, another young lady was stirring in the arms of Justin Finch-Fletchley. Hannah Abbot would have been described by most as quite a plain girl. She did not have classic beauty, nor did she have voluptuous curves. Her hair was a mousy brown and neither overly frizzy nor sleekly straight. Her eyes were a mixture of green and brown. Her complexion was just slightly on the bronzed side, but not enough to be of particular note.

To Justin, however, there was no lady more desirable on the face of the planet. She did not have external beauty, it was true, but external beauty was, in Justin's opinion, too ephemeral to form the basis of a relationship, after all any woman's looks would fade with age. Beauty of the mind, or of the spirit, however, was everlasting, and it was for her patience, her gentleness, her constancy, that Justin loved Hannah. He did not know what he would do without her. They had been through so much together. She grounded him, kept him sane and hopeful when the years of hardship, on the run from Death Eaters and Sentinels, would have crushed his spirit.

"Morning, love," he said to her as her eyes blinked open rather sleepily.

"Morning," she whispered back, "How'd you sleep?"

"Better than I have in a while," he told her, "Remus got in touch this morning while you were still sleeping, Harry's moving to a new secure location, and they've managed to pick up a couple of old friends along the way, Hermione and Ginny."

"That's great!" she exclaimed, suddenly wide awake at the good news, "Where had they been? No one's seen them since the Siege."

"Remus didn't say, he just sent a quick message to say that they were found and that Harry was on his way to being back in action."

"Good news all around then. Will you be going to see them?"

The simple question put Justin into an immediate bind. On the one hand he got on well with Hermione and Ginny, had done since they fought together in the Battle of Hogsmeade, and it would be nice to see them, to catch up. On the other hand going to see them would mean seeing Harry, and since he had not done that since the day Harry became lucid and threw a massive tantrum at Justin's presence, that might be just a little awkward, not to mention potentially detrimental to his own health. Harry was obviously not yet willing to forgive and forget Justin's family's treatment of him at and after his trial, and to be fair Justin could not blame him. After learning of the way Azkaban had added to the brutal treatment administered by his father and brothers, he was not sure that he would be particularly willing to _ever_ forgive if he were in Harry's position. Nevertheless the fact still stood that it was primarily to avoid Harry that Justin had been living in with Hannah for the last two months.

"I don't know," he hedged, "I don't really want to face Harry again yet, especially now he has a wand."

"You know, you can't possibly resolve this between you if you just avoid him. You need him, and he'll need you."

It was one of those uncomfortable truth moments that Justin always hated at the time, but also one of the very reasons why he loved Hannah so much. She was never afraid to say the hard stuff like he was.

"I doubt he'll need me," Justin snorted, "Hell, if what he did in Azkaban is indicative, we could probably send him after Voldemort right now and expect him to come out on top."

"You sell yourself short, Justin," she said gently, "this is about far more than destroying a Dark Lord. Voldemort has overturned our whole world; someone will have to institute a new government to replace him once he is dead. Even Harry can't be expected to conceive and implement an entire government all by himself, no matter how much influence he will have once he has brought Voldemort down. He'll need friends, supporters, people he can rely on to plan and execute offices with real power. You can be part of that."

Justin snorted again.

"Harry wouldn't rely on me to find a Death Eater in Voldemort's stronghold. No way would he ever trust me with real power."

"You got him out of prison, you led that team, didn't you? Harry knows that, he'll see that you have something to offer. _If_ you get past this whole issue of the trial."

"How do you do that?" he asked, genuinely curious.

"Do what?" she asked in return.

"Make me feel better by telling me off."

She laughed.

"It's a gift," she told him, delivering a kiss to the tip of his nose, "Now when are we going over to wherever it is they're all hiding?"

"I'll have to make contact…" he started, before the whole of what she said sank in, "Wait, _we_?"

"You can just stop right there, Justin Finch-Fletchley. I am going as well, and you are not going to stop me. If for nothing else than that you need someone there to be on your side if you and Harry _do_ have trouble."

Justin allowed as how she was right about that at least. If Harry lost his temper, he would probably need all the help he could get in order to leave the room alive.

"Alright," he sighed, "I'll have to make contact with them through the secure methods. They'll give us a rendezvous to make, and then they'll take us wherever it is that they happen to be."

"You don't think that they'll still be at Shell Cottage?"

"Not now Remus has sent a message. They'll clear out of there by the end of the day, just in case Remus' message got intercepted or tracked. No telling where they might go next."

"Alright then," Hannah said, "You get that message out, I'll make us breakfast."

"What's the rush?" Justin asked, grinning at her with a somewhat lecherous air "It's Saturday."

She laughed and smacked him playfully on the arm.

"Just go and write your message, Justin," then she leaned in so that her mouth was right next to his ear, "We can always go back to bed _after_ breakfast, love."

Justin's grin was like that of a small child on being told that Christmas would be occurring twice that year. He leapt out of bed and started tracing runes on a piece of parchment, runes for secrecy, for security, for truth and for recognition. Then he added the runic symbol of the Phoenix and his own personal rune. The sequence would then be completed with Remus' personal rune, which would trigger the parchment to be sent to the pick-up point Remus had designated. Then he turned the parchment over and began writing so quickly that his hand was almost a blur across the page.

* * *

Harry decided that of the many means of magical transportation in existence, Apparition was definitely his favourite. It beat the Floo and portkeys on the basis that it did not cause him to consistently land painfully on his rear. It beat the Knight Bus because it did not make him feel nauseous and dizzy for an extended period of time. It even beat a broom on the grounds of sheer speed. They had just Apparated clear across Britain, from Filey in the North East, to Snowdonia in Wales. Specifically, they had appeared on the outskirts of a village that, according to the welcome signs on the road they could see from their vantage point in a small copse, was called Dolhendre. The village was tiny, not much more than a few houses surrounding the road junction.

"This is it?" Ron asked, looking somewhat unimpressed by the tiny village.

Harry, however had a very different opinion, his attention was riveted by the sight of a stately home on the top of a nearby hill. It was some distance away, perhaps a mile, but Harry could tell that it was huge. The front face of the house was a single plane, but Harry judged by the more faded red of the stone used in the central section, that the wings of the house were newer. It was quite clearly the home of a wealthy family, the sheer size of the house proved that. Harry was not entirely certain, but he thought that the small protrusions near the roof-line, which were silhouetted by the sky, might be statues. Dead centre above the house was a tall flagpole, from which a banner flew proudly, a banner that was red, and bore on it the crossed wand and sword, and the twin rampant dragons grasping a rosette from either side that made up the Potter crest. Somehow seeing it for real, flying over his house brought out more pride than seeing the crest on the pages of the book he had read on Wizarding Noble Houses.

"You see it, don't you?" Sirius asked, smiling at Harry's dumbstruck expression. He could only nod as a reply.

"You'll have to guide us in, Harry, once we cross the boundary for the enchantments with you, the wards will read your intent to bring us with you and we'll be able to see it too."

"Are we really going to have to hold hands?" Ron seemed quite averse to the prospect of such a juvenile action.

Sirius laughed at his expression.

"No Ron," he assured him, "So long as Harry crosses the wards first, his intent should be sufficient to reveal the mansion to all of us. At least that's how it worked when James brought me here the first time. If that's not enough, then we are going to be treated to the best and most complete disappearing act ever achieved by a wizard."

The group walked towards the hill and the house that only Harry could currently see. They were quite close, only about 500 yards away, when the Mansion suddenly became visible to Harry's friends, and their reaction to the impressive structure was much the same as his own had been. Remus and Sirius, having seen the place before, grinned at the open-mouthed expressions on the faces of the three teens.

"Mate, you're bloody royalty!" Ron exclaimed. Hermione and Ginny's faces suggested that their opinions were much the same.

"Wait until you see inside," Sirius told them conspiratorially.

They were not disappointed either, the interior of Potter Mansion was easily a match for its impressive exterior. Harry estimated that the hallways were at least fifteen feet from floor to ceiling, and the rooms themselves frequently topped that. And the variety of rooms and their number was staggering. There were three huge reception rooms just off the entrance hall, which easily rivalled that of Hogwarts for size. There were sitting rooms, dining rooms and drawing rooms in the main part of the house on the ground floor.

The East wing had an enormous training hall with target dummies and an obstacle course on its ground floor. Sirius told them that the upper two floors housed the library, which caused Hermione to start drooling in anticipation, and everyone else to laugh at her rapturous expression. Over forty sets of chambers, each one containing its own bedroom, bathroom and private sitting room, made up the second and third floors of the main body of the house. Sirius could not take them into the West wing, only Potter family members could enter there, but he told them that the wing housed an armoury, a potions lab, a ritual room and a smaller private library that supposedly contained all the Potter family secrets. Including the nearby forest, the grounds of the house were huge, and there were several greenhouses out the back as well as large open area that Sirius told them had been used as a Quidditch pitch by James in his youth.

The group set themselves up in a series of chambers on the second floor. Upon questioning why everything was in such pristine order, Harry received a long, long lecture, or perhaps rant would have been a better term, from Hermione concerning House Elves and their enslavement by wizardkind. He filed the subject away in the list of things never to bring up in Hermione's presence unless it absolutely could not be helped. Later that same day, Harry went in search of the kitchens, which Sirius told him were in the basement of the house, and introduced himself to the team of six house elves that worked down there. They were overjoyed to be needed once again, and Harry resolved to have Hermione down there as soon as possible, so that she could see how elves really felt about their work.

By early evening, they were well ensconced in their new home. Remus, Sirius and Ron were fine, having brought all their belongings shrunk and in their pockets from Shell Cottage. Raiding wardrobes across the house had provided Ginny and Hermione with functioning wardrobes that mostly fit them, although the clothes were a trifle formal and elegant. Still Harry was not going to complain because they were suddenly dressed like extras from a period piece, and he privately suspected that they were well pleased to not have to wear their Sentinel uniforms at all times. Harry himself had no trouble finding clothes either, he had unwittingly chosen his father's rooms as his own, and discovered that their similarity of appearance extended to their clothes sizes as well. His father had only left behind wizard's robes, but it was better than nothing.

The House Elves tried to force a huge welcoming feast on them, but Harry would not hear of it, and eventually resorted to threatening them with a month-long enforced holiday if they did not provide a standard dinner of not more than two courses for the six of them. Then the group agreed to have an evening's relaxation, then get down to serious work in the morning. Ron and Hermione instantly disappeared, and it was not hard for the rest to guess what would be going on in one of their rooms after dinner. Sirius and Remus also disappeared, probably to seek out their old haunts in the Mansion. Harry had noticed that the two men thought of their time as Marauders as their glory days, despite the fact that Harry knew they had done some impressive things since leaving Hogwarts, in their view it seemed nothing could top the mischief and laughs they had propagated at the school. Ginny disappeared into her chambers and Harry was left by himself.

He wandered the halls, taking in the building that had housed generations of his family, if what Sirius said was true. He had to agree with Ron, it did indeed have all the opulence of a royal palace. The hardwood floors of the hallways were polished to a mirror finish, the carpets in the individual rooms were thick and heavy. There was hardly a wall that was not adorned by some form of decoration, whether it be carved panelling, a portrait, a mounted antique. Harry even found a few small potted trees in some corridors. He did not enter the West wing, not yet, he was not ready to confront the secrets of his family, nor to use the complex magic that he knew could be performed in a ritual room, nor to brew potions. Instead he went to the library. They had agreed to relax, but he could not relax. He had the world on his shoulders, and he was not even a fully trained wizard yet.

The library was vast, as Sirius had promised it would be. Hermione would probably have both her eyes popping out on stalks when she walked in, in the morning. He spotted the index volumes at the ends of the nearby shelves and went over. He had had enough of theory, it was time to learn some practical, so he asked for books of spells.

He discovered, to his surprise that the index volumes worked rather differently here than they had done in Shell Cottage. Instead of just giving him the titles and locations of the relevant books, the index volumes actually summoned the books they listed to him, and judging by the enormous pile that had appeared all around him, they covered the entire library. Assuming that if the index volumes summoned the books, then they must return them as well, he tried out several vocal commands until he managed to cause the books to vanish, and hoped that they had all returned to their rightful places. Lifting the index volume from its stand, Harry carried it to one of the large reading tables situated in the open area at the centre of the library. He opened it and repeated his request for spellbooks although this time he specified that he wanted _simple _spellbooks. The stack that appeared was about ten high, and piled neatly on the table rather than scattered around him. He took his wand out and picked up the first one.

An hour or so later, Harry was as happy as a pig in mud, his wand slashing and twirling with a life of its own. He had found a book on basic wand movements and was trying them all out. He did not know why they had never thought to supply this particular book, entitled _The Wand: Basics for Beginners_, to first years. It would have been so much easier to learn like this than to follow the torturous written instructions in the _Standard Book of Spells Grade 1_. The book was a picture book, and the diagrams were animated in wizard-fashion, with captions under each diagram listing common spells that included each kind of movement. He had great fun following the moves demonstrated in each diagram and reading the kinds of spell he was learning how to cast.

About halfway through the book, he found movements that were too expansive to be adequately copied from his seated position, so he stood and moved to the expanse of empty floor that was just in front of the door to the library. With his book in one hand and his other arm making sweeping motions with the wand he bore a stunning resemblance to the conductor of an orchestra. Now he did not bother to stop and read what spells employed the wand movements he was acting out, he just carried on. The diagrams moved in sequence, and he followed them, not always perfectly, but when he made a mistake he went back and did the move again until it was perfect. After another couple of hours, his arm, hand and fingers were practically numb, but he could now do all the moves in the book from start to end, fluidly, and the success felt good.

Noting the late hour, and the soreness of his wand arm, Harry decided that this much progress would suffice for the evening. Tomorrow they would begin work in earnest, and in the meantime, tonight was a Dreamless Sleep night, so he should probably get as much rest as he could nightmare-free. He returned the books to their shelves with the spoken command, and replaced the index volume on its stand before exiting the library, the torches that lit the room dimming at his retreating presence. He walked up to his chambers, changed into a pair of pyjamas, downed the vial of potion, and clambered into bed as the drowsiness began to take effect. Within seconds, he was out like a light.

* * *

So what's the verdict? Good? Bad? Leave me a review to let me know!


	7. Assemble

For disclaimers, warnings and pairing notifications, see chapter 1.

Author Note: Well this is the final rewritten chapter. Lots of people suggested that Harry's grudge with Justin was rather unreasonable, so I've essentially eliminated it in this chapter. Not much else has changed, to be honest, except for a few small details here and there. Still, I hope you guys like it. Let me know what you think.

* * *

The following morning, Harry received the news of Justin's message. He was not overly pleased at the prospect of seeing the man again, mainly because he had not yet fully decided how he felt towards him. On the one hand there was what he, his father and brothers had done after the trial. For months he had been in agony from the injuries he had received, and he knew some of them had not healed right in prison, which would have left him crippled for life had he stayed there. On the other hand, Justin had helped to spring him from that hellhole, had even been the one to lead the attempt. He wanted to hate the man for the one, but in his heart he was grateful for the other. It was a dichotomy that he was still struggling with, and he did not really see himself finding a solution anytime soon.

Nevertheless he was not about to dictate to his friends who they could and could not see. He was already limiting their social circle enough simply by virtue of the fact that his return needed to be kept a secret. Therefore he agreed that Justin would be picked up by Remus at the Red Lion pub in Hatfield the next day, from where they would Portkey to Dolhendre and Harry would walk Justin through the wards from there.

They then got down to the very serious business of planning Harry's training schedule. Broadly speaking, they divided the day into three parts. The mornings, which would begin anytime after Harry had breakfast, but not later than 8:30, would be devoted to sword training with Sirius, who in addition to being a former Auror, and thus trained in physical and magical combat, had had duelling lessons provided by his parents from the age of eight until he had run away from home. Not long after leaving Hogwarts, just before applying to train as an Auror, Sirius had taken his duelling Mastery and passed with flying colours. So it was agreed that he would take charge of working with Harry on all things combat oriented. Then Harry would have an hour's lunch break, starting at noon.

Afternoons would be devoted to magical learning. They had elected to start Harry off in the core subjects first: Transfiguration, Charms, Defence Against the Dark Arts, Potions and Runes, and then move onto the areas that were not on the Hogwarts curriculum once Harry was competent in these core areas. Hermione was the only one among them to have taken Runes, so she landed teaching that by default. Remus had held the position of Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts, so again this was a no-brainer decision. Potions was tricky, because being all Gryffindors, none of them had ever done particularly well in Professor Snape's class. Of course Hermione had scored Outstanding on her OWL, just like all the others she took, but she already had one subject area to teach Harry. Eventually it fell to Ron, since Ginny was considerably his superior in both Transfiguration and Charms, which she had agreed to teach Harry together, because the subjects overlapped to such a great degree. Dinner would end these lessons promptly at 6:30.

Evenings and weekends were, broadly speaking, his to do with as he pleased, but Hermione had helped him draw up a detailed and organised plan of how he was going to spend that free time, and a lot of it involved further research into the subjects he was already learning, or delving lightly into the Arts he had yet to begin. At her insistence, however, he had at least one hour of relaxation every day, when he was 'forbidden to even _think _about anything work-related' as Hermione had admonished, much to his amusement. He was reminded of all the times he and Ron had used such 

lines on her during the free afternoons she had consented to spend with them during their first and second years. Ron's grin at her words said that he remembered those times too.

Planning all this brought them up to lunchtime, so they had lunch and then, eager to get started, Harry went with Sirius down to the training room to begin learning how to use a sword, while the other newly-appointed teachers went to the library to begin drawing up their curricula.

"Do you think this will work?" Ginny asked worriedly, nerves suddenly gripping her as she realised the magnitude of the task before them, what they did or did not manage to achieve here and now with Harry could seal the fate of the entire wizarding world, one way or the other, "Do you really think we can do this, teach him to a standard on par with Voldemort?"

"It'll work, Ginny, Harry's got the power, he just needs to learn how to use it," Ron said confidently, "We just have to have faith in him, and in ourselves. You got top grades in your OWLs, if it hadn't been for the siege, you would have breezed through NEWT. Same for Hermione, and Remus here was the best Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher we ever had."

"Ron's right, Ginny," Remus agreed, "You didn't see what Harry did at Azkaban. He blew a huge hole in the wall of the prison with nothing more than pure power. He can match Voldemort strength for strength; we just have to teach him the finesse of it, the art to using that strength. None of you were slouches in the exams you took, if we had been able to take you all through to NEWT, my guess is you would all have made top grades. We've got the 'how', and Harry's got the raw power. It's eminently doable."

"I guess," Ginny said, "It's just that I never imagined that I would wind up as a teacher. I'm not sure how good I'm going to be at it."

"Relax, Ginny," Hermione suggested, quite unhelpfully in Ginny's opinion, and her continuing statement did nothing to change this opinion, "It's not like you're going to be teaching an entire class. Just Harry."

"Exactly! It's Harry! The last time I saw him before yesterday, _he_ was saving _me_ down in the Chamber, now _I _have to teach _him_ the finer points of how to do magic."

"You have no idea how much he hates that," Hermione said softly.

"Hates what?"

"Hero worship. It happened to him all the time First Year. Not so much Second Year because of the whole Heir of Slytherin thing, but in our first year at Hogwarts, he would get people coming up to him all the time, wanting to shake his hand, wanting an autograph, wanting to know how he defeated Voldemort. He hated it every time it happened. He always used to say that people weren't seeing him, just the Boy-Who-Lived,"

Hermione paused, and Ginny was about to say something, to try to justify herself, but Hermione carried on, taking no heed of Ginny's impending interruption.

"It always surprised me that at eleven he understood that already. _I_ didn't realise it was even true until a few years later, when they started looking up to _us_ after Hogsmeade. Before that I had thought it was just his not being accustomed to the fame. Please, Ginny, if you do nothing else, if you turn out to be a horrible instructor, please make sure that you see _Harry_, get to know _Harry_, _not_ the Boy-Who-Lived, or the Chosen One. There are going to be so few who do, once he announces his return, everyone is going to be looking for a saviour, a hero to save them from Voldemort. Someone needs to remember that he's just a man, and however powerful he may or may not turn out to be, he has his limits. He's going to need friends, people he can just be himself around, without the expectations and standards that other people are going to have. That's what he needs from us, as much or more than he needs us to teach him magic."

Ginny was not sure what got to her more, the pleading note of Hermione's tone, or the deadly serious look on her brother's face as he nodded along with her words. This obviously meant a lot to them, which meant that it would probably mean a lot to Harry. Remus, too, was quite rapt at Hermione's quiet speech. The cub had been rather inscrutable about his role in all this, so to know that he would appreciate being treated like an ordinary person was a good thing. Remus had been half-afraid that Harry's lack of comment on his fame had been the result of arrogance, or expectation of special treatment. It was nice to know that his best friend's son was not, in fact, an arrogant primadonna, but rather would prefer to simply forget about his so-called position in society and get on with what he had to do.

"I'll try," Ginny said, "It's just…he saved my _life_, Hermione. Without him I would not be here. I can't help but make that a big thing."

"I'm not suggesting it wasn't," Hermione replied, "Just remember that he didn't save you because he's some kind of superman and it was his job. In your mind, and in mine it might be very special to risk your life for someone, but to Harry it's completely ordinary, something any true friend would do. Let him know you appreciate it, but don't put him on a pedestal because of it, he'll hate it, even if he never says anything."

"I'll try," Ginny repeated.

"That's all I ask," Hermione said, flashing the redhead a smile.

They entered the library and fell to planning their curricula. It was important that they all co-ordinated so that Harry would have the appropriate knowledge in one field to be able to perform in another, so there was lively discussion as they argued about the likelihood of progress, what spells were most useful and so forth. It took them a good five hours, but eventually they had a plan that would, if followed right, bring Harry up to OWL standard within the year, and NEWT standard perhaps as early as eighteen months after that. Essentially they had taken the Hogwarts curriculum and stripped it down as bare as they could. Harry did not need to learn about the history of spell-crafting, which wizards wrote which theories or anything of that nature. He did not 

need to know the more esoteric points of magic either, such as the debate on exactly what happened to an object when you vanished it, or why exactly magic and electricity did not work well in proximity to one another. Taking all of that out left them with a very compact block of knowledge, and based on Harry's progress in First and Second years, as recalled by Ron and Hermione, he would probably catch on fairly quickly to the mostly practical-oriented courses they had come up with. The more advanced branches of magic were something that Harry and Hermione would be researching together in the evenings, and they hoped to add them in formally once Harry reached OWL standard, but since none of them were experts in those fields, they could not predict how quickly Harry would learn them.

Meanwhile, on the level below in the training room, Harry was quickly discovering that sword-fighting was not simply a matter of picking up a sword and waving it around straight away. Well that was not strictly true, for he was indeed holding a sword, two in fact, one in each hand. But at the moment both were in their sheaths, and he also had lead weights strapped to his wrists. Sirius had him going through a series of exercises intended to improve balance and co-ordination, while the weight of the sheathed swords and the weights on his wrists would build strength in the key muscles in his arms. According to Sirius, these exercises were basic, and they would move on to more advanced ones when he was competent enough to do each one ten times without stopping or faltering.

The best he had managed so far was to get half way through the routine before the weights on his wrists caused him to waver in his movements. That had been right at the beginning of the session. Now with fatigue cutting in after four hours of doing this with few breaks, he could barely get through the first few moves fluidly. His only consolation was that Sirius was right there, holding two swords identical to his own, with his wrists also strapped up, doing the routines perfectly alongside Harry, proving to him that it _was_ possible, and that with time and hard work, he _would_ be able to do them too. Eventually Harry could not do anymore, his whole body was sore, but his arms and wrists were to worst, weak and trembling because of the extra weights. He still had not managed to get all the way through a routine yet.

"Don't worry about it, Harry," Sirius told him, "You're doing well, it took me at least ten sessions to get through a whole routine. This isn't something you're going to pick up overnight."

"I guess," Harry sighed, "I just hope that we have the time for me to learn everything I need to."

"Harry," Sirius said gently, "This is going to take time, and a lot of work. You're certainly going to be training with me for at least six months before you're competent, a year before you're good, at the _least_. I think that even learning the essential of magic will take you that long too. This is a long-haul project, pup. We're _not_ going to be toppling Voldemort tomorrow."

"I know that," Harry said, "But if there's any shortcuts we can take, I'm all for it."

"Not for this, pup, sorry. Now I suggest you take a shower before we go to dinner. As hot as you can stand it to ease the pains in your muscles, and tonight you should 

just sit back, relax, don't do anything that might strain something. Tomorrow I'll show you some exercises to improve your flexibility, so that you're not as likely to get cramps and strains, then we'll take another crack at the routines from today, okay?"

"Okay," it was difficult to tell whether Harry genuinely was as enthusiastic as his tone made him out to be, but for now Sirius decided to accept what he said at face value, even though it was clear that he was disappointed by the proposed time-scale of his training. He let his godson go, and watched as the young man walked out. As he stacked the swords and weights against the wall to one side, he noted that he too was covered in a sheen of sweat. He decided that he too needed a shower and a change of clothes before dinner. He was rusty, to work up a sweat from nothing more than balance exercises, but training Harry should get him nicely back into top form.

Dinner was served for the entire group in a seventh set of chambers that they had converted into a type of communal area for themselves. The table could have seated twice their number in a pinch, but as it stood, it was large enough for them to have plenty of room, but small enough that they could all easily talk to one another. Harry was roundly terrorised about the horrors of his impending training, but took the teasing with good grace. Even a month on, the contrast still struck him between the solitary nature of Azkaban and the easy informality he enjoyed here among friends, especially with Hermione and Ginny added into the mix.

As harrowing as the Dementors were, he still considered the isolation to have been the worst thing about his imprisonment. Being cut off from all his friends had made him think that they had betrayed or forgotten about him. He had spent days raving about them all, about the things he would do to them if he ever saw them again, and that had been _before_ he slipped into the embrace of madness, God only knew what he had said and done then. Then he got out, and discovered that they had not abandoned him at all, they had simply been frustrated by an incompetent and fearful leader, and so he had become supremely embarrassed and ashamed by his previously black and vengeful sentiments towards them. He would never be able to make it up to them, but he would do his best to try. Saving the world for them to live in at peace seemed like a good down payment to start.

* * *

Justin and Hannah sat on the wall that enclosed the car park of the Red Lion, impatiently marking the time until their rendezvous with Remus. They got a few strange looks from passers-by. Sitting on the wall outside a pub not due to open for another couple of hours at least was not exactly common-place behaviour in this neighbourhood. Nevertheless, no one openly questioned them on why exactly they were there, and so they endured the curious stares of people they would probably never see again. So close to dead on half past ten that it hardly mattered, they spotted Remus walking towards them from the direction of the railway station. They got up from their seated positions and greeted him enthusiastically, Hannah with a hug and a brief peck on the cheek, while Justin, being more manly, gave him a firm handshake.

"Good to see you again," was all Remus said to either, although his smile was just a little wider than they were accustomed to seeing.

Together the three of them walked a short way down the road from the pub, until they reached a small area of woodland, which was part of the grounds of the nearby Hatfield House. They entered the tree-line, and made sure that no one else was around with the surreptitious use of spells to reveal human presences. Then Remus took out a small carving that he had lifted from his chambers in Potter Mansion for this purpose. It was wooden, and shaped in the form of a wolf, and seeing it standing on the mantelpiece was what had caused him to choose that particular set of rooms. Justin and Hannah both made sure that they were in contact with the carving, and Remus tapped it with his wand and said 'Activate'. There was the familiar jerk behind the navels of all three, and they were whisked into the dimension of whirling lights and colours that all Portkeys traversed to reach their destinations.

Harry watched the three figures coalesce from a flash of light that had appeared seemingly out of nowhere. It was interesting to watch a Portkey arrival from the outside, it almost looked as though they were coalescing out of thin air, surrounded by a nimbus of bright blue light. Moments later, he was looking at the solid forms of Justin and Remus, and a girl who seemed vaguely familiar, but whose name he could not quite recall. Figuring that he did not lose anything by being polite, Harry greeted all three cordially.

"Good morning, welcome to North Wales."

Justin nodded his acknowledgement and offered a hand to shake. He was moderately surprised when Harry took it firmly, but not attempting squeeze particularly hard. The ice was broken, just as Hannah had predicted it would be.

"Thanks for accommodating us, Harry. Good to see you're doing alright."

"Thanks, and you're welcome," he sounded surprised at the sentiment, which Justin took as a good sign. Then he stepped back to let Hannah say hello.

"Hello again, Harry," she said, with genuine warmth in her voice, not, Justin supposed, that Harry knew her well enough to really be able to tell the difference in her.

"I'm sorry," he told her quite calmly with no embarrassment whatsoever, "But I can't quite recall what your name is. One of the side-effects of where I've been for the last few years. Is your name…Harriet?" he offered the last part rather hesitantly.

"Close," she said, laughing a bit, "Hannah, Hannah Abbot?"

Harry shook his head hesitantly, clearly the name did not mean anything to him, not that Justin would have expected it to, in fact he was somewhat glad that Harry did not. The only class he had ever shared with Hannah was Second Year Herbology, and Hannah had shamefacedly admitted that she and Ernie Macmillan had not treated Harry well in that class after his own petrification.

"Oh well," she shrugged, "We can get to know each other I hope?"

"Sure," Harry said, seeming somewhat wary, "But how about we go inside first?"

"I was just about to suggest that," Remus chimed in.

"What do we have to do?" Justin asked.

"Just follow me, apparently," Harry responded.

"Lead on then," Justin replied.

Harry started out from the woods, Remus beside him, since he did not need Harry's aid to cross the ward boundaries anymore now that he had access once again. Justin and Hannah trailed by about four feet, holding hands as they walked. Justin felt a bit stupid, since they were walking towards a mouldering ruin on an otherwise barren hilltop. He had learned long ago, however, that appearance could be deceiving, especially in the wizarding world. He was therefore not surprised by the fact that a manor house suddenly appeared on top of the hill. What did surprise him was the size of that manor house, and the impressive looking banner that flew from the flagpole over its entrance. Justin knew he was quite likely to catch flies with his jaw hanging open like this, but at the moment that was definitely a secondary consideration. Once he did recover himself, however, he saw that Hannah had had a similar reaction, and was open-mouthed at the size and scale of this house. He looked at Remus and Harry. Remus looked amused, while Harry, well he could not really tell what Harry looked like. He was still not that great at reading the man's emotions. There was no mistaking his tone of voice, however.

"Welcome to Potter Mansion," he declared wryly to them.

"Wow," was the only response either Justin or Hannah could give, which caused Remus to chuckle for real.

"I had much the same reaction on my first visit, I assure you," he told Harry, "It will only get worse."

"I know," Harry replied, "I watched the others the first time."

Justin did not understand that little byplay until Harry brought them inside through the main doors of the mansion, where once again he could not prevent his jaw from falling open again.

"Harry," he said, "This is without doubt a thousand times more impressive than every other pureblood mansion I have ever been in. When you get back into mainstream society, you are going to be positively envied by people like Drake."

"Who?" Harry asked.

"Drake, oh wait, you wouldn't know about that. Draco Malfoy, has preferred to be known as Drake ever since he joined the Order."

"_Malfoy_ joined the Order?!" Harry's face was a picture of shock and outrage.

"He was one hell of a spy and saboteur in the war. I guess Voldemort didn't seem so hot after he lost his mother to the man," Justin told him, "Drake won't talk about it, but we mostly think that either he was forced to watch or he was forced to participate while they tortured his mother to death."

That shut Harry up. Then his gaze turned cold, so cold it made Justin shiver.

"He'll pay, for all of them. I'll make him pay for every last one of his victims," Harry's voice was like a howling Arctic wind, even though he was speaking quite evenly. Justin was in no doubt as to who Harry was referring to, and that he was deadly serious in his threat. Then as quickly as the coldness had appeared, it vanished. Justin was not sure what frightened him more, the fact that Harry could do that at all, or the fact that he could turn it on and off just like that.

"Well," he told them brightly, "I'm afraid I have a lesson to get back to with Sirius, but the library is in the same direction, and that's where Hermione should be, so if you come with me, I'll point you in the right direction."

They walked through the hallways of the stately home, Justin trying not to gawk too much at the ornate interior décor. At last they reached stairs, where Harry needed to descend to reach the training room, but he instructed them on how to get to the library in great detail. Then he disappeared down the stairs for whatever lessons he was having. Justin and Hannah continued along the corridor for a few more yards, then he turned to her.

"Was that as scary for you as it was for me?" he asked her.

"You mean the way he changed when you told him about Malfoy's mother?" she asked in return, to which he nodded, "Yes that was frightening. I see now why you think we could let him out against Voldemort now and expect him to win. I also see why you were avoiding him. I wouldn't want to face that alone either."

"Actually, that was nothing like what happened. I got screaming and explosions, but somehow that was actually _more_ scary."

Hannah could do nothing other than nod. The grim and forbidding expression in those green eyes was the stuff nightmares were made of, certainly a far cry from the shy awkwardness she remembered from the Boy-Who-Lived in her admittedly hazy memory of the two years they had spent in school together.

Two hours later, eight people sat down to a hearty lunch of bread, cold chicken, salads and steaming hot potatoes, followed by apple crumble. Harry had learned by now that House Elves were constitutionally incapable of providing less than two courses for anything other than breakfast, and that they would load the table until it threatened to break under the weight of all the food, unless given very strict instructions to the contrary. Harry was once more flushed and more than a little tired, although not quite as much so as he had been last night. The exercises to improve flexibility were a lot more genteel and easy than the ones Sirius had first shown him, mainly because the key was to let your body stretch itself rather than try to force anything. Forcing led to 

twists and strains, whereas natural weight would do the work for you if you let it. As a result he had only needed a short shower before coming down to lunch.

"So, Harry, how long before we can announce your triumphant return to the wizarding world, the full five years?" Hannah asked him. She was referring to the time left on his Hogwarts schooling, having learned that the plan was for him to be at NEWT standard before he announced his return to the Order of the Phoenix.

"Actually, this lot," Harry nodded at his five companions, "Think they can get me there in three."

"That would be…impressive," Justin commented.

"I'm going to need it," Harry commented back automatically. Then he realised what he had said, or rather whom he had said it to. He had a double-take moment, and realised that it had been an entirely natural reaction. The blond Hufflepuff was actually quite a personable man, easy to talk to, and Harry silently digested that fact as the others continued to chat around him.

This was ridiculous, he decided, Justin was a perfectly reasonable person, and there was no reason whatsoever for him to continue to hold a grudge, except that he was being childish. Ron had been trying to tell him so, subtly, for a month now, but Hermione had uncharacteristically been the blunt one, and they had had a long talk about it after breakfast yesterday after he had acquiesced and while the Remus and Sirius were organising the logistics to get Justin and Hannah here. She had praised Justin to the hilt, apparently he had been a top organiser in the Order's hierarchy, and had co-ordinated the Battle of Hogsmeade with skill and finesse. Harry was not entirely clear on what exactly this meant, but the praises of _both_ his best friends were a high recommendation indeed in his book.

"Justin, can we talk? In private?"

The entire table was dead silent at his question, and everyone was staring at him. It was a bit of an awkward moment, until Justin got over his surprise and nodded.

"Sure."

They rose from the table and exited the room, to the curious stares of five people and the hopeful gaze of one.

"I hope they get things sorted out between them," Hannah commented into the silence.

"I think they will," Hermione said, "I had a talk with him yesterday about what a good man Justin was in the war."

"I dunno, 'Mione," Ron said doubtfully, "After what Justin's father and brothers did at the trial…I've been trying to get him to be more friendly towards Justin since we got him back, and it hasn't worked yet."

"I don't think they're going to become best friends out there, Ron," Hermione countered, "But I think after what I told Harry, combined with the fact that he led the team that rescued him, that Harry might have more respect for Justin, more trust in him, than he did."

Outside, Justin and Harry simply stood in the corridor, a short way along from the door. Justin leaned casually against the wall, but his hand was near his wand, just in case…

"So…" Harry began hesitantly.

"So." Justin replied, not wanting to rush the Boy-Who-Lived, but then seeing his hesitancy, he continued, "Look Harry, I should start, and I should start by apologising for what…happened."

Harry, however, waved it away.

"It's done, Justin, in the past. I'd rather not talk about it, but I'm trying to look past it, okay?"

"Oookay," Justin said slowly, "What _did_ you want to talk about then, if not that?"

"Tell me about the work you did in the war. Hermione told me you were a good co-ordinator, and I think I've got an idea about what that means, but I want to hear it from you."

"It means that I was sat in the war-room at Hogwarts, nice and cosy at the planning table, organising raids that involved multiple cells of the Order of the Phoenix so that other people could go out and do the hard stuff. I would tell each cell where to be, and when to hook up with their comrades, I would have to judge the strengths of their targets to make sure that enough people got sent to take care of whatever it was, and then I would give the people on the ground as much information as we had on the targets they were going for."

"So you were a strategist, like Ron," Harry attempted to clarify, "You organised other people, had dealings with most of the Order."

"Yes, but Ron was much more big picture than me. I was in charge of the next battle, the next raid out of the castle. Ron was involved in planning the next whole series of raids. He would give me the targets, and then I would go over what we had on them and figure the best way to crack them and how many people it would take to pull it off."

"That's about what I figured," Harry said, "So I've got a job for you, if you want it."

"That depends on what it is," Justin replied warily.

"I can't do this by myself, Justin; it's just too big; the eight of us aren't going to be able to bring down Voldemort's regime by ourselves. We're going to need help, and it's going to need to be skilled, experienced and ready for a fight by the time I am."

It took a moment for Justin to realise the implications of Harry's statement, but when he did he was beyond shocked. For a moment Justin could only stare at Harry Potter as if he had just told him that he was Voldemort's secret son. Hannah had suggested that Harry would see his usefulness and give him something to do, but he had _never_ expected it to be this easy. It was several long moments before he could choke out anything even resembling a coherent sentence.

"Do you realise what you're asking?" he asked weakly.

"Yes," Harry said seriously, "I'm asking you to reform the Order of the Phoenix and get it to work undermining Voldemort's power while I get ready to face him."

"Are you sure you want me to do this?"

"Yes," Harry said, "Look Justin even if I was going to hold on to the whole thing with the trial, I'd still ask you because this is much bigger than anything going on between you and me. We need the Order back, and we need it to be coherent and effective. Hermione says you're probably the best man for the job of leading it, and Ron seems to agree with her. I _trust_ them, and _they_ trust you, that means _I_ trust you, okay?"

"Okay," Justin agreed, this was much better than he had allowed himself to hope it would be, "So, a truce?"

"More than that, I hope," Harry said, "I'd like us to be friends, you seem like an okay guy."

This time he was the one to extend his hand to be shaken, and Justin took it firmly.

"I'd like that too, Harry. Now we should probably get back before the others come looking for two corpses."

Harry smiled a bit and agreed, so they walked back the way they had come, and re-entered the dining room. The six around the table were relieved to see both men reappear, both smiling and neither one sporting injuries of any sort. They had not heard any shouting or angry words so they assumed that things had gone well between the two and carried on with their lunch.

That afternoon, he had his first lesson in Potions with Ron, allowing Justin and Hannah more opportunity to catch up with Hermione and Ginny. The lesson Ron had for him was fairly simple. With the aid of a few highly useful books in the library, he took Harry through a wide variety of magical substances and potions ingredients, explaining their properties and the ways they interacted when mixed in potions. On the whole, Harry found it to be quite interesting, certainly far superior to Snape's pathetic technique of instructing them to make a potion from the textbook and then berating them when they got anything wrong.

Immediately after dinner, the couple bid their hosts good-bye, Justin promising Harry an update on the state of the Order of the Phoenix as soon as he could manage it. After promises to remain in touch on a regular basis, Justin and Hannah Apparated 

from the entrance hall of Potter Mansion to Hannah's London flat. Later that evening flashes of fire signalled the arrival of small pieces of parchment at drop-points across the country. Every parchment was inscribed with the symbol of a Phoenix and bore Justin's personal rune as a mark of the sender. One the opposite side of the parchment was written a date and a time, and underneath both a single word of command.

_Assemble._

* * *

So, what's the verdict?


	8. Phoenix Reborn

For disclaimers, warnings and pairing notifications, see Chapter 1.

Author Note:Well as promised, this chapter sees the introduction of several new story arcs. I hope no one minds particularly that I'm not sticking rigidly to the canon ships. Sadly I didn't do my research properly previously, and so only found out after putting Hannah with Justin that she should have been dating Neville! Since their relationship was already established a couple of chapters ago, I had to do some rethinking. I hope my choices of who to put with whom meet with everyone's approval. I'm open to suggestions if anyone wants to see a ship that I haven't established already, for example if you really want to see Draco get a girlfriend, or Luna get a boyfriend. Otherwise, I hope you enjoy...

* * *

It was a good day to be Neville Longbottom, or at least it was a good day by the standards of the current times. As a pureblood but a known supporter of the Light side in the war that had brought Voldemort to power, he stood in a strange limbo, both loved and hated by Voldemort's government. His pureblood status meant that Voldemort, who envisioned a society where purebloods were the only kind of magic-wielding human and ruled supreme over all other magical creatures, could ill-afford to get rid of him, for reasons of eugenics if nothing else. There were simply too few pureblood families left out there for the Dark Lord to terminate any without risking all the rest to inbreeding and degeneration. Thus he retained his life, and to a large extent his freedom. He knew that he was on a watch list, that Sentinels frequently followed him and that his accounts and business dealings were carefully scrutinised by Voldemort's lackeys. These things he could deal with, however, and it was not all bad. He retained his wealth, his ancestral home of Longbottom Hall. He had friends, many of whom shared his feelings towards Voldemort's regime, and best of all he had his fiancée. Quite how the gorgeous, talented and incredibly intelligent Susan Bones had ended up engaged to him he was still not entirely sure. She would, after all, undoubtedly have a line a mile long of applicants if she ever decided to throw him over and seek a new boyfriend, and many of them would probably be far richer, far smarter and far better looking than he himself was. He supposed that the marriage laws that Voldemort had enacted forbidding the marriage of purebloods to anyone with fewer than three pureblood grandparents might have had something to do with it. Mostly though he decided that not questioning a good thing, and doing everything in his power to hold on to that good thing was probably the wisest course of action.

That was, in fact, how he had passed most of the afternoon and how he would spend the rest of the evening. He had taken Susan out shopping, first in Diagon Alley for those things which one could only get there, such as robes, and then out into Oxford Street for the rest of her clothes and shoes. Considering the exchange rate of pounds to the Galleon, in spite of the fact that Susan had bought far more Muggle outfits than she had wizarding ones the trip into Diagon Alley was by far the more expensive of the two. Then he had treated her to an early dinner in a restaurant in the West End. On their way back to the Apparition point a large billboard on the side of one of the theatres there had caught her eye. Now she was upstairs, hurriedly changing into one of the several stunning dresses she had bought that afternoon so that they could Apparate back to London in time to sit down to The Phantom of the Opera. All in all it was definitely one of his more upmarket dates, normally they just hung out wherever the mood took them, but on the first month anniversary of their engagement he felt that something special had been in order. The dreamy look on Susan's face as she had gone upstairs to change told him that he was doing well so far.

He glanced at the desk in his study, taking things in. Sometimes he enjoyed the history, the tradition that surrounded this old place. Generations of Longbottoms had lived in this house, conducted their business from this study. It made him feel small to know that standing in this room he was in the spiritual company of all his forebears. His musings were cut short by the flash of fire that appeared above said desk, a signal he had not seen in a long while now. Moving around the desk, he saw that one of the drawers, the only one with a magical seal on it, had changed. Where before smooth polished wood might mislead the casual observer into thinking that this was just a solid part of the desk, there was now a raised golden design, a design of a bird with its wings spread in flight. It had been his own idea, implemented for him on the antique desk by Dumbledore himself. Taking his wand out he tapped the design and spoke the agreed password, which caused the drawer to slide outwards smoothly, silently. Within was a piece of parchment, which Neville picked out. He checked the sender's rune, Justin. He had not heard from Justin in a long while now, he had been starting to get a little worried. He turned the parchment over and read the message.

His reaction was slightly mixed as he considered the implications of the message. Something was definitely afoot, and if it involved the entire Order then it was big. To Neville only one thing could be that big, they were going to fight again, they were going to start a rebellion. On the one hand he was glad that not all hope was lost, that there were still people out there who felt the same way as him about Voldemort and his regime and that they were still willing to do something about it. On the other hand, however, starting up the war meant new battles, risking his life and the lives of his friends again. Not that he was a coward, not for nothing, it turned out, had he been sorted into Gryffindor, but he was not stupid. They had already lost to Voldemort once, they would need to plan carefully, think out every contingency, and most of all they would need some kind of edge for this rebellion to be successful, otherwise there was no point. He would go to the meeting, Justin would have his support, but he would be damned if he was going to be part of some half-baked revolution. They would do it properly or they wouldn't do it at all.

For the second time that evening his musings were interrupted, this time by the clearing of a decidedly female voice from the direction of the door. Neville turned to face the door, and stopped dead. It was moments like this when he wondered why on Earth Susan even bothered with him. She was wearing an elegant black dress, which, although modestly cut in the neckline, was an exact enough fit to show off her curves to very good effect. The skirt of the dress reached down far enough that, had it not been for the inch-high heels of her shoes, it would have been brushing the ground and the spaghetti straps that held it up left most of her tanned shoulders bare. Rather than her usual thick braid, her hair was cascading down her back like a silky auburn waterfall. Her eyes sparkled brightly, and she had a pleased smile hovering on the corners of her mouth. In short, she looked like a goddess newly descended from whatever celestial plane might exist.

"See something you like, Mr Longbottom?"

Neville's jaw worked soundlessly for a moment or two before he could answer coherently.

"Why yes, Miss Bones, I believe I do," he said, trying not to sound too breathless.

"Shall we go then?" she asked.

He shook his head and handed her the parchment.

"Read this first."

She took the parchment from him, her eyebrows raising up at the phoenix symbol that appeared to be burned into it. It took her less than twenty seconds to read the message.

"You're going?" she knew him too well.

"Yes," he told her, "If Justin thinks we can do this…well he was always a good planning man. He wouldn't call us together just to reminisce. This must be something big, and I'd want to be part of it."

"Of course you would, and I'll be coming with you."

That surprised him. Susan had never been part of the Order, like her mother she was with the Light, but preferred to remain outside the Order itself.

"Are you sure?" he asked, "You've never been interested in Order stuff before."

"Nev, there's no way I'm letting you go off to war without me, not after a year of dating and a month of engagement. We're in this together now. Besides, if this is as big as you suspect then you're going to need every wand that you can get."

"Okay then."

Susan looked at him suspiciously.

"You're not going to argue? Not going to try and tell me to stay home where it's safe?"

Neville tried to look innocent, for that was _exactly_ what he had been contemplating but had decided against.

"Would it have worked?" he asked her in return, then continued without waiting for her answer, "There didn't seem any point in wasting my breath. Besides you're a talented witch, Sue, and you got top marks in Defence Against the Dark Arts. Just let me watch your back when we go out on missions, ok? That's all I ask."

"Oh Nev," she kissed him soundly, "I love you, you know."

"I hope so," he replied, "I love you too."

"Shall we go, then?"

"Yes," Neville replied, offering her his arm, which she took. Then they walked together down the drive of the manor house to the Apparition point, Apparated to a secluded alley next to the car park in Orange Street and from there made their way to Her Majesty's Theatre.

It was definitely a good day to be Neville Longbottom.

* * *

For Draco Malfoy, on the other hand, it was not quite such a good day. In contrast to Neville, he was working, even though his shift was technically long over, members of the Auror Department never really went totally off-duty. In his case, as one of the commanders in the division, a rank he had earned less than three months ago thanks to a major raid on one of the few remaining hideouts of the Order of the Phoenix. Of course he had neglected to mention in his report of the raid the part where he had in fact warned Order members to get out almost twenty hours in advance. They had stormed an empty building, but the ample, and totally phoney, evidence they had gathered on the Order's operations thanks to his 'tip-off' was an apparent enough coup to kick him up the rank scale by one notch. Now he was sat in the cubicle that served as his office, staring in frustration at the piles of parchment that summed up his current case.

This particular case had been open for nearly eight months now, and the trail was getting very cold indeed. Last July, on the 31st, person or persons unknown had attacked Azkaban prison, blown a massive hole in the wall of the prison, killed two guards and then apparently done absolutely nothing. All prisoners were accounted for, no irregularities had been detected in the protections surrounding the prison and a hallway-by-hallway search of the fortress had revealed nothing that had not been there before. He had no knowledge of any Order missions to Azkaban lately, and the one spell residue they had picked up had been a total unknown, never recorded anywhere before. The only thing they did know was the spell that had been used to destroy the wall section, that had been the one spell-residue still strong enough to be picked out. But it was no help, the spell was a reasonably common, albeit staggeringly powerful in this case, classed Dark under the old laws of the Ministry, but not actually associated with a Dark Art, so it was semi-legal. Draco was well and truly stumped by all of this. Who would break into a prison to do absolutely nothing? More to the point who had the kind of power level exhibited by the massive hole that the spell had left? Draco could only think of two or three answers to the second question, and none whatsoever to the first. As a spy he institutionally hated mysteries like this. His position for years had relied on him knowing more than almost anyone else, on being one step ahead of counter-intelligence attempts, now he was up against something or someone that he knew nothing about. He did not know if they were friend or foe, human or not, and most of all he had no idea whether this was a one off or just the first strike of many.

His dark musings were interrupted when his ring, the heir's ring to the House of Malfoy suddenly grew hot against his finger. It was a signal he recognised all too well. Almost glad for the distraction, he stood up from his desk, leaving things exactly as they were so that he could come back to his investigation in exactly the same place come morning, not that he was hopeful that anything new would present itself to him in the light of a new day. He walked briskly over to the bank of lifts, stepped into one and pressed the button for the Atrium. The lift took off at once and bore him swiftly to the uppermost floor of the Ministry of Magic complex. Once there he Apparated out, re-appearing at an Apparition point just a few miles away, in a dark alley beside a rather non-descript block of flats that rose five stories high. He pulled out a key and let himself in the front door, climbing the stairs to his relatively comfortably appointed apartment and letting himself in with a second key. He shut the door firmly behind him, completing the circle of his wards again, and then raised a few extra privacy wards around the whole apartment. He walked over to the room that was both his bedroom and his study.

Stashed under the bed (slightly clichéd, perhaps but there were few other hiding places in his apartment for an object of this size) was his old school trunk. It now contained all he had in the world to remember his mother by, her wedding dress, two other dresses that she had favoured, one to wear at home and one to wear out, a small vial of her favourite perfume, her engagement and wedding rings in a small velvet box and a simple necklace of silver with three sapphires, his own birthstone, set in it that he had given her for Christmas less than a month before her death. These were all that he had been able to surreptitiously rescue for the pile of stuff that his bastard father had planned to auction off, as if twenty-seven years of marriage meant nothing to him. He would never forgive his father for that any more than he would forgive Voldemort for torturing his mother to death in front of his very eyes.

Aside from these items, there were two other objects in the trunk. One was a leather bound book, on whose every page were stuck photographs of his mother, some of her on her own, and some of her with him. Many, if not most of these photos showed damage where Draco had excised his father from those pictures, but his mother still looked out, dignified and regal from every photo, with the exception of the ones that included himself as a baby. In those she glowed, just as all new mothers do in the presence of their children. The second item, however, was the one that now interested him. On the outside it looked like a simple jewellery box, and that was indeed how it had begun life, in the possession of his mother. Now it was something more however. He had warded it himself, with the strongest wards he could cast, Blood Wards tied to himself that protected the contents. Then after that he had taken it to Gringotts and paid the Goblins a stupidly large amount of money to have it warded further with preservation and security wards of the most powerful kinds. In short, probably no one except the Dark Lord and himself could open this box, and if Voldemort himself ever came looking through his personal belongings then it would mean that his life was probably already either over or no longer worth living so that hardly mattered. He unlatched the box and lifted the lid, then took out the parchment within. Emblazoned with the symbol of the Phoenix and a sender's rune, it was a general message to all members of the Order. He read the message, its one worded command sparking hope within him. It had been too long since there was a general meeting of the Order. For Finch-Fletchley to be calling one now could only mean something big was going on. Maybe this was it, maybe they were finally going to get their act together and start a full-blown rebellion. A smile grew on his face as he took out his wand, memorising the date and time on the message as he did so, and incinerated the parchment before Vanishing the ashes.

Suddenly Draco Malfoy's day was looking a lot better than it had before.

* * *

Cedric Diggory Apparated home from Flourish and Blotts, where he worked as a counter clerk, to find his wife, Cho, already waiting for him. It was to be expected since he was late. The shop had received some additional stock mere minutes before closing time, and he and his colleagues had been forced to process it and then get it on the shelves before clocking off for the night. He kissed his wife of eighteen months and doffed his cloak and outer robe before following her into the kitchen of the cosy two-bedroom apartment that they shared. It was a tradition they had established within days of their wedding, since they both liked to cook, and were both good at it, they always cooked dinner together. Indeed the few occasions that they had invited friends over and cooked for them had been laden with recommendations that the couple open their own restaurant on Diagon Alley, which would instantly put Fortescue's and the Leaky Cauldron out of business as places to eat.

Less than ten minutes after they had begun, however, there was a single chime from the clock that hung on the wall above the fireplace in the living room. It was not like a regular chime, however. It went on too long for that, and it quavered oddly before dying away. At the same moment, on the counter by the door to the kitchen, the diamond of Cho's engagement ring flashed brightly, impossibly brightly for it to be glare from the apartment lights. They were both signals, signals that husband and wife knew too well, although neither had been used in some time now. Cedric knew that, had he been wearing his wedding ring, which was currently sat on the countertop next to Cho's engagement and wedding rings he would have felt it heat up very briefly. Husband and wife looked at each other very briefly, before rushing to the bedroom together. They each had a drop-box for messages from the Order, but only Cedric kept his at their home. Cho stored hers elsewhere, so that if they were ever in danger of being compromised, they could destroy one drop-box and still remain in contact with the Order. Opening it, they found Justin's summons within.

There was no need for discussion or communication between the two. They both knew that they would answer the call. Although they had not fared too badly so far under Voldemort's regime, they had plenty of friends who had lost everything. The majority of Order members, with the exception of the ennobled houses like Longbottom and Bones, had lost almost everything to Voldemort's reparations exactions. The Macmillans, the Prewetts, the McGonagalls, the Abbots, and the Quirkes had all been virtually impoverished by this. Moreover their Muggle-born friends had suffered atrociously thanks to new laws that prevented them from getting decent jobs. Totally unqualified in the Muggle world and unable to earn a living wage in the wizarding one, many of them had been reduced to living on the streets or to virtual, or even actual slavery to pure-blood families, depending on whether they fell in with sympathetic masters and mistresses or cruel ones. There was no question that, if not for themselves, then for everyone they knew, they would do everything in their power to see Voldemort and his pureblood mania gone, and at least something approaching equality restored to wizarding society once more.

* * *

Seamus Finnegan was just walking out of the café where he worked in Belfast. Going Muggle was not the easiest thing to do even for a half-blood wizard, but it had been the only financially feasible thing to do in the wake of the second war with Voldemort. The reparations he had been forced to pay out for the fact that his family had sided with the Order of the Phoenix had cost him virtually everything. After the sale of his house, the auctioning off of most of his possessions and the calling in of all the family debts, he had been left with a bare thousand galleons to his name, with which he had to support himself, his sister and his mother. The discovery of the pounds to galleons exchange rate had eased his despair over the financial considerations. Seventy five thousand pounds was enough to buy them a smallish two bedroom house in Whitehead, just a few miles away from Belfast itself, and to set up a small investment fund that just about provided the three of them with enough to live on. He and his sister were sharing a room again, something they had not done since he was six, and they had to be very careful, but between the investments and the supplementary income from his job in the café they were surviving. Magic helped, of course, for both he and his mother had kept their wands, once magical always magical. Repairing charms extended the life of clothes by a considerable degree, although they never got restored quite as well as they started, warming charms cut down on central-heating bills, conjured fires supplemented electric lights. Aguamenti meant that they could get a better deal on the water bill by being metered. In all, the little things in magic were just about all that stood between him and his family and being thrown out on the streets. He had never really paid that much attention to Flitwick when the tiny Charms professor had taken them through Charms like these, just taken the requisite notes and achieved the required proficiency in casting. Now his cleaning charm would cause a tabletop to sparkle, his repairing charm would put virtually anything back together and his skills in household charms were above and beyond Outstanding.

His sister, however, was going to Muggle school, mainly because it was free for her to do so, and learning magic only a very little bit on the side from his old books. They would not buy her, her first wand, she would always use either his or his mother's, she would never see Hogwarts in all its glory, she would never understand Seamus' enthusiasm for Quidditch because she would never see it played. It was the little things that they missed from full immersion in the magical world. Also the modes of dress and speech. Clothes had been the one major expenditure that they had had to make in setting up their new life, aside from the house of course, and even after more than two years, Seamus still caught himself wondering where his outer robe was, or reaching for the hooded cloak as he walked out the door to go to work. He also had to remember that Merlin was not a common exclamation word, nor were there any implications behind cracks about one's mother amongst local teens and young adults. A buzzing in his pocket drew him out of his somewhat maudlin introspections. He reached in and pulled out a small mirror. This was the one indulgence they allowed themselves, because the licence to own enchanted objects cost a pretty Sickle to obtain, but it was much cheaper in the long run than say a mobile phone. Voice only rather than a full image had reduced that cost slightly, and it also had the added advantage that he could pretend that it was a phone, thereby reducing looks of suspicion from passers-by. He placed the rectangular mirror to his ear.

"Yes?"

"Seamus," the voice of his mother sounded in his ear, "You'd better come home quickly today. There's a message waiting for you, I think it's from the Order."

"I'll be right there, mum, I was just walking out as you called."

"I'll see you in a bit then son."

"Bye, mum."

The connection ended and the mirror returned to its usual reflective self, and he slid it back into his pocket. Looking around quickly, he ducked into a nearby alleyway and Disapparated with a soft pop that did not carry very far.

* * *

Luna Lovegood, being a talented Seeress, needed no signal to know that a message was on its way to her from the Order of the Phoenix. She had already foreseen its arrival, and was awaiting it with eagerness. There were only seventeen possible messages that she could get, and they were all favourable. There was a one in five chance that the meeting concerned a last ditch rebellion, which in itself had a one in three chance of destroying Voldemort. By far the best probability however, was on the idea that Harry Potter either had been or was about to be liberated from Azkaban prison. Much would depend on the date and time that the meeting had been set for, as well as the identity of the sender. She grimly accepted that their chances of failure were still better than even, and even if Harry had been released, the road ahead was going to be a long and dangerous one. There were so many decision forks that needed to be made the right way in order for them to have a chance at winning that it made her mind spin sometimes, but she needed to keep faith, to trust in the greater plan.

At last, in a flash of fire, the expected parchment materialised in mid-air and drifted gently towards her desk, but she snatched it before it could touch the polished wooden surface. Her fingers trembling in anticipation, she checked the sender rune. Justin Finch-Fletchley. That eliminated an entire slew of possibilities from her visions, and suddenly she could breath easier than she had in three years. One of the worst fates had been avoided. That left only three hundred possibilities that mankind would essentially be destroyed, and about eight hundred thousand more where Muggles were wiped out entirely, of course those were the absolute worst-case scenarios. It was much more likely that Voldemort would simply enslave all Muggles to his will. Nevertheless the possibilities for Voldemort's downfall had just opened up a little wider than they had been before. She turned over the message and read the time and date set for the meeting. Her smile faltered only very slightly. It was not the worst possible choice, but there would have been better ones. Again branches of the decision tree that she could see fell away, some good and some bad. The road ahead was going to be long and dark, but there was a good chance of light at the end of the tunnel. The next important step would be to see who answered the call. Having the right people present at that first meeting could mean the difference between success and failure, between life and death, for them all.

* * *

The appointed time for the first general meeting of the Order of the Phoenix in far too long was set for Friday evening, at 7:30. Fifteen minutes ahead of time, Justin and Hannah Apparated from her London flat to the headquarters of the Order. Headquarters was actually a heavily warded terraced house in Primrose Hill, Birmingham. The location was chosen by Dumbledore for its centrality back in the first war. Officially the house was owned by one Charity Prewett, an entirely real and very close friend of Dumbledore's grandfather, so she had all the necessary paperwork in legal terms. A check of her birth certificate would have revealed that the lady was now a little over two and a half centuries old, but since the taxes and bills on the house were paid on time and in full, Muggle authorities had never had a reason to check small details like that. In the wizarding world, however, it was well known that Charity Prewett was long dead and buried, and the Ministry had simply assumed that since there was no further record of a magical person living at that address that the property had passed into Muggle hands. Thus, ignored by Magical and Muggle governments alike, the house was the perfect place to meet for a clandestine group that knew of its existence.

The door opened to Justin's unlocking charm, a deceptively simple method of entrance. He had in fact been magically scanned by a number of wards. Had he not been on the approved list of entrants, the simple charm would have resulted in a nasty and rather gristly death for him. Since he was on the approved list, however, he entered without incident and moved to the living room, which was the habitual meeting place of the Order. Like most wizarding houses this one was magically expanded, far larger on the inside than it appeared to be on the outside. The living room could quite happily accommodate chairs for thirty to forty people, depending on how friendly people were willing to get. Justin flicked hi wand, summoning twenty chairs from the sides of the room and arranging them into two semi-circular rows facing the large coffee table that stood at one end of the room, then he set another chair behind the table for himself, clearly establishing his position as leader of the gathering. If he were honest he would be impressed if three quarters of that number turned up. He had received no replies, but that was to be expected. Thos who wanted to would come, those who did not, would not. Then Hannah sat in one of the 'audience' chairs, and Justin took his place in the 'leader' chair.

Fifteen minutes later, the first click of the door opening heralded the next arrival, and ten seconds later Draco Malfoy walked in, nodding cordially to Justin before taking the chair next to Hannah. More clicks heralded more arrivals, and within five minutes they were joined by Neville Longbottom, Susan Bones, Seamus Finnegan, Luna Lovegood, Daphne Greengrass, Blaise Zabini, Orla Quirke, Cedric and Cho Diggory, Oliver and Alicia Wood and the dirty and dishevelled figure of Colin Creevey. Justin looked around at the expectant faces. He was glad of every arrival, but in particular the presence of Draco Malfoy meant that they would have all the intelligence they would need. Greengrass, Zabini and Longbottom were impressive fighters, not to mention their financial backing would be invaluable. The others were above average fighters, but Justin was somewhat dismayed that none of the truly exceptional duellists had elected to return, in particular Nymphadora Tonks and Katie Bell, one an Auror, the other a Gringotts Cursebreaker were members he had hoped to see again. Perhaps they had simply not been able to get away for today. He would have to contact them both personally. In the meantime, he would work with what he had.

"Good evening, everyone, I'm glad you could all make it. To be honest this is about as good a turnout as I was expecting for a first meeting. I'll dispense with the pleasantries, other than to welcome Susan to the fold. I'm guessing that Neville is the reason you're here Sue?"

"Yes, Justin, although I was for you before, you know. It's just that it would have looked bad for Auntie if I'd gone rogue with the Order instead of supporting her at the Ministry."

"We know, Sue, but all the same it's good to have you with us now."

Justin looked around at the assembled group, making sure to catch each person's eye before starting in on his prepared speech.

"I think it's time," he told them, "to start getting active again. We've been quiet long enough. Voldemort's had it easy for the last couple of years, he probably thinks he's won. We should start showing him that the Light may have been dimmed, but it hasn't gone out yet."

"Fine words, Finch-Fletchley," Malfoy said calmly, "Inspiring, but you expect the fifteen of us to start a rebellion against the Dark Lord alone? That's beyond crazy."

"And letting him stay secure in power isn't, Drake?" Justin countered, "Every day that he has no problems is a day closer to his goal of ultimate domination of Britain, and once he has that, we could all end up dead or worse. If he can secure his hold on Britain on the Muggle side as well it'll be a catastrophe. You know that. I'm not saying we do this alone, but someone needs to do something, and we've got the means and the will to do it."

"Obviously we all agree," Neville chimed in, giving Malfoy a quelling look, "Or we wouldn't be here. But what's your plan, Justin? You must have some kind of idea, or you wouldn't have sent that message. Let's hear it."

Justin spent the next twenty minutes outlining his ideas for the group. In theory it was a simple plan, but those were always the best kind. They would recruit and train a fighting force, and essentially do to Voldemort exactly what he had done himself, attack and capture the key locations of Wizarding Britain one at a time. Of course there were a lot more stages to it than that. They would have to work to destabilise Voldemort's regime while they were still building up their forces, otherwise by the time they were ready to act it would be far too late. They would need to build up networks of support to ensure that they could hold their gains. Most of all they needed to find some way to kill the greatest Dark Wizard of the modern age. Justin had added that one in there to throw them off of any possible clue they might have for Harry's return. The question of Voldemort would remain an open one until Harry was ready to come out into the open, but he did not want to spread that news around until Harry was back with them and ready to do what he needed to do. It was a general plan, to be sure, but it was a plan that was workable, that had potential, and it was enough to make the fifteen of them sit up and think.

As it turned out, they spent almost an hour and a half sitting there, tossing around ideas, names of potential recruits, strategies and so forth. Draco promised to re-activate as many of his information-miners both the people and the various ingenious magical 'bugs' that he had planted over the years. Daphne was an 'in' into providing additional information thanks to her work in the Advanced Magical Research Department (formerly known as the Department of Mysteries), which gave her clearances exceeded only by members of the Inner Circle of the Death Eaters when it came to information, so long as she could provide good cause why she needed to know, and she also promised a few interesting inventions that had not, and now would never find their way into the Dark Lord's arsenal. Colin was enthusiastic about sounding out the few Muggle-Borns that continued to survive on the edges of wizarding society, mostly by crime or begging. He seemed sure that most or all of them would leap at a chance to harm the government that had essentially driven them to destitution. He was not sure how the Muggle-Borns who had indentured themselves as servants to Pureblood families to survive could be reached, but promised to try and work on the problem. There was little that the others could do beyond sound out close friends and former Order members to try and get their numbers up, but what they could do they would. All in all Justin considered the meeting a success, they had brought together a core group with influential connections and motivation. He was not going to start talking about the After-War party just yet, but it was a good start. They parted ways, leaving singly or by couples as appropriate. Justin and Hannah remained, sat together in a large arm-chair, she enjoying a good cuddle with her boyfriend, he already mentally composing the account he was going to have to give to Harry in the near future.

* * *

So, what's the verdict? Review and let me know!

IMPORTANT AUTHOR NOTE 28/4/8: This story is now undergoing a rewrite, in response to some serious criticisms made today which have drawn together fallacies that have been pointed out to me before, but which I was hoping to rectify in future chapters. It's now clear to me that the problems present in this story are too large to be solved by a little glossing over in future chapters, so I'm going to be taking a long hard look at what I've got, make much more definite plans about where I want this story to go (I admit that I've been coasting rather a lot, for example I never wrote down a coherent history of events during Harry's incarceration, which if I had would have indicated a lot of the problems to me before I even got started, but no longer, from here on out careful planning is the name of the game), and rectify inconsistencies that have been pointed out to me before, but were really shoved in my face today. I hope you'll bear with me as I do this (I'm more than a little afraid of losing my 43 faithful followers), but I promise if you hang in here with me, I'll do my best to do this asap and then hopefully this story will be even better than before. I'll conclude this notice by publicly thanking BJH and MDR, the reviewers who so forcefully opened my eyes, mostly because it would have been all too easy for them to simply post flames telling me this was crap, but instead were thoughtful and helpful enough to actually point out specific flaws and offer advice on how to fix them.


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